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No. 633 


J. H. Shorthousc 


25 Cents 


Entdfed at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter. Issued Monthly. Subscription Price per Year, 12 Nos., |5.00. 


Extra 

THE COUNTESS EVE 


Nouci 


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BY 

J. H. SHORTHOUSE 

AUTHOR OF “JOHN INGLESANT ” 


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NEW Y"OEK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 
November, 1888 


^axptfB iDceklg for 1$$9. 


O N the 5th of January, 1889, Harper’s Weekly will enter on the thirty-third year of 
its existence. It continues, with steadily broadening scope and larger aims, to jus- 
tify its title as “A Journal of Civilization.” It touches on every side the varied phases 
of human progress, and presents a carefully studied record, in pictorial and literary 
form, of the notable events and movements of our time. The remarkable presentation 
made in its columns of the industrial progress of the New South was followed up last 
year by a series of special supplements describing and illustrating the progress of various 
sections of the West. 

The Western supplements will be continued from time to time, and to other selected 
topics of scientific, artistic, or social interest will be given special supplements during the 
year. The number and variety of subjects exhaustively, ably, and popularly treated in 
these supplements during last year have excited general attention, and added considerably 
to the public estimation of the Weekly. 

In Politics, the influence of Harper’s Weekly will be, as heretofore, directed to the 
end of securing a higher standard of public duty and an abler and purer administration 
of public affairs. It will continue to hold partisan advantage as merely a means to the 
end of good government, and will, as always, be in the front rank of those who are 
endeavoring to effect a complete and permanent divorce, between the work of political 
organizations and the strictly business affairs of the Nation, the State, and the Munici- 
pality. 

In Literature, Harper’s Weekly for 1889 will be liberally supplied with contributions 
from representative American authors in the departments of fiction, poetry, science, and 
miscellaneous writing. The standard of ability maintained in the general articles will 
be found to be equal to that which finds expression in the illustrations which the te*xt 
accompanies. 

The serial works of fiction in the Weekly of 1889 will be of purely American 
authorship. Up to March the serial story, entitled “Between the Lines,” will be from the 
pen of Capt. Charles King, U.S.A., the author of “A War-Time Wooing,” which found 
so much acceptance with the readers of the Weekly last year. Captain King’s new 
story will also be a tale of the war, and will be replete with the stir of military action 
and incident, in the description of which this author has an acknowledged pre-eminence. 
In March Mr. William Dean Howells will begin a serial story, in which the' leading 
characters of Mr. Howells’s popular novel “Their Wedding Journey” will be brought 
to New York, and their experience of various phases of our city life be set forth in a 
way calculated to make this one of the most deeply interesting of its author’s works. 

In Art, the publishers of the Weekly expeot to maintain a continuous advance in the 
quality and interest of its illustrations. It is intended that the Weekly should be a reflex 
of the varied activities of the people in every part of the country, should keep its acknowl- 
edged supremacy as the illustrated journal of the American continent, and should neglect 
no great manifestation of human energy in any part of the world. 

As a family journal, Harper’s Weekly will be edited with the same strict regard 
which has been paid in the past to the qualities that make it a safe and welcome visitor to 
every home. Coarseness and vulgarity will be strangers to its columns, and scenes that 
people of pure tastes would shrink from witnessing will be deemed unworthy of pictorial 
representation. 


Harper’s Magazine, $4 oo| Harper’s Bsizar^ postage free, per year . . $4 00 
Harper’s Weekly, “ “ 4 ool Harper’s Young People, “ ..200 

Address : HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, New York. 


THE COUNTESS EVE 






BY 


-J? ffi^^SHORTHOUSE 

AUTHOR OF “JOHN INGLESANT” 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

J888 


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“ That it may please Thee to strengthen such as do stand, and to 
comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up them that fall, 
and finally to beat down Satan under our feet.” 


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:• I. 










THE COUNTESS EVE 


I. 

In the science of sound there are partial tones, which 
are unheard, but which blend with the tones that are 
heard, and make all the difference between the paltry 
note of the poorest instrument and the supreme note of 
a violin. So, in the science of life, in the crowded 
street or market-place or theatre, or wherever life is, 
there are partial tones, tliere are unseen presences. Side 
by side. with the human crowd is a crowd of unseen 
forms — Principalities and Powers and Possibilities. 
These are unseen, but not unfelt. They enter into the 
houses of the human beings that are seen, and for their 
coming some of them are swept and garnislied, and they 
abide there, and the last state of these human beings is 
radiant with a divine light and resonant with an added 
tone; or, on the contrary, it rna}" be that, haunted by 
spirits more wicked than themselves, the last state of 
such beings is worse than before — subject to a violence 
and tyranny abhorrent even to themselves; impalpable 
and inevitablej as it would seem, even to the confines of 


€ THE COUNTESS EVE. 

despair. In the quaint streets of an old French provin- 
cial city, as in the proudest cities of the world, some- 
thing like this was happening, and not in this city only, 
or at the time we write of, or to the few people we are 
trying to know something about, but to all people, and 
iTi all places, and during every day and through every 
higlit, as long as human life shall endure. 

In the year 1785, or thereabouts, the events which 
are about to be related are said to have occurred in a 
city of Burgundy which shall be nameless. It is not of 
much consequence whether these events occurred in 
Chalons, or Dijon, or Besangon, or Dole, but it does 
seem to me important for the understanding of the 
story that the reader should form in his mind some 
image of the old high-roofed, gabled and walled city, 
mellowed and crumbling with age, standing amid mead- 
ows and orchards and vineyards upon the sunny slopes, 
and the winding river and mill-pools, and, beyond, the 
gradual rise of woodland towards the Jura Mountains, 
with their fir forests and deep valleys and sudden rain- 
storms, and the white-cliffs shining against the delicate 
southern sky. 

Outside the city, a lovely paysage^ picturesque with 
uncultivated lands, with wretched peasants herded into 
a few miserable villages, with numberless poor nobles 
prouder than they were poor, living in farm-houses and 
ruinous small chateaux, with here and there the great 
isolated chateau of a grand seigneur., an absentee and a 
courtier in Paris. 


THE COUNTED a EVE. 


7 


Inside the city, narrow, winding streets with rough, 
stone pavements, and gutters down their midst, lofty 
gabled houses, and wharves and holies by the river. A 
swarm of notahles and privileged middle classes, paying 
no taxes, hated by the unprivileged, taxed, down-trodden 
people. A small class, half noble, half bourgeois, who 
preferred the city to the country. A.^society perfectly 
provincial, with no thought, with no hdpe, beyond its 
narrow horizon — a society frivolous, petty, pleasure- 
seeking, pleased with infinitely small pleasures; dan- 
cing, laughing, chattering from day to day. 

In the city, as in all French cities, was a theatre, in 
this case one of higher character than was common, 
and at the time this story commences it was occupied 
by a company of players of more than ordinary capac- 
ity, who were performing with distinguished success, 
and attracting the gentry and populace of the city and 
province to their acting and singing. 

Among the members of this company w'ere two 
young men, one of them an actor, the other a musician. 
The actor, w’ho was slightly the elder of the two and 
was named Felix la Yalliere, was the descendant of a 
family of actors of the school of Moli^re; the other, 
Claude de Brie, was the offspring of a family of penni- 
less nobles, whose father had married a girl as penniless 
as himself. As he had stolen this girl away from her 
convent school, and had by such conduct broken through 
all the convenances of his order, and alienated himself 
from his family, he was cut off from the only resource 


8 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


of the boj^s of penniless noble families — the marine. 
He renounced by his own act — doubtless very fortu- 
nately for himself — the life of aimless, listless inactivity 
entailed on many of his order, and struck out a new 
path and resorted to acting and to music for a liveli- 
hood. His son followed the latter profession. 

These two young men, whose fathers had been inti- 
mate friends, were inseparable companions. Of the 
most opposite temperaments, the very difference of 
their characters seemed only to cement their friendship. 

They were both handsome, but of very different 
styles. La Yalliere, the actor, was slight and elegant 
in build, with a changeful, facile expression of feature 
and of attitude, singularly attractive and fascinating. 
His friend, to a figure noble and distinguished, added 
an expression of perfect sweetness combined with stead- 
iness and gravity. They were, doubtless, a striking 
pair. 

As an actor la Yalliere was at once the darling and 
the perplexity of the manager of his company and of 
his fellows, many of whom indeed considered him to 
be nothing less than a madman. He was so popular 
that hife eccentricities were overlooked, and his violation 
of all law condoned. He so entirely associated himself 
with the characters he represented on the sta^e that he 
lost himself in them, or rather they were lost in him, 
and consequently he scarcely ever acted a part in the 
same way for long together, suddenly changing his con- 
ception and interpretation of the character as the wliim 


9 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 

or fancy of the moment prompted him. This was less 
objectionable in those days, when the same piece was 
rarely given on two cousecutiv^e nights, than it would 
be at the present day; but it will easily be seen that 
such a tendency would be perplexing to his companions. 

What is still more important, however, is that what 
la Yalliere was on the stage he was also in real life. 
He regarded life and all mankind as only the shifting 
scenes and persons of a stage play. What he did him- 
self he was willing to allow of or to expect in others, 
so that no settled conduct or regular law of action was 
to be expected of society so far as he was concerned ; 
and not only was moral law unknown, as it seemed, to 
him, but physical law seemed also uncertain and inse- 
cure, so that nothing that could have happened in the 
world of sense would have surprised him, and he was 
an avowed believer in Mesmer and the fashionable cab- 
alistic diablerie of the day. It is possible that the lack 
of physical certainty explained the want of moral firm- 
ness, for if a man is not sure of the ground under his 
feet, he is not likely, as men go, to be more certain of 
the heaven over his head. 

As on the stage he could not properly be said to act^ 
for he played every part simply as it presented itself 
to his own fancy, so in life he could scarcely be consid- 
ered a responsible or moral being, so completely did the 
dramatic impulse of the moment, or of the situation, 
carry him with it. 

In surprising contrast to this gay and lawless creature 


10 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


was his bosom friend Claude de Brie, one of those rare 
natures to whom God has given the faculty of purity, and 
training has given the winsome grace of an ideal life. 
******* 

The play was over, and the two friends came out by 
a side door into the wet street. Muffled in their long 
cloaks, and picking their way as they best could through 
the mire and over the huge stones of the causewaj^, by 
the light of a chance lantern or of a still open shop, 
they were startled by the passing of a large carriage 
accompanied by servants, and the next moment by its 
sudden halt. Over the house-tops a bright moon, shin- 
ing out from between the dark rain-clouds, lent a sud- 
den lustre to the murky by-street. 

“Sir,” said a servant, who had descended from the 
box-seat of the carriage, “ if, as I believe, you are Mon- 
sieur Felix la Yalliere, Monsieur le Comte du Pic -Adam 
requests the honor of your company at supper at his 
chateau without the Gate de Yeaux.” 

“I am most honored by the invitation of Monsieur 
le Comte,” replied la Yalliere, “ but I have with me my 
friend Monsieur de Brie, who is spending the evening 
with me.” ^ 

“Sir,” replied the servant, with lofty politeness, “I 
am quite sure that Monsieur le Comte would not wish 
to separate you from your friend. Monsieur le Comte 
will be honored by the company of you both.” 

He turned back towards the carriage with an air 
which said plainly — 


TBE COUNTESS EVE. 


11 


“Wlien "choose to condescend we are not the peo- 
ple to do things bj halves.’^ 

“Fortune favors us,” whispered la Valliere to his 
friend. “ This is that old diplomatist who has married 
the lovely young wife whom they call the Countess 
Eve.” 

Picking their way as well as might be across the mud- 
dy street, the two young men approached the carriage, 
which stood surrounded by servants carrying links. 

As they reached the carriage they were greeted from 
within by a bland and courteous personage, apparently 
of middle-age, but who might be younger than he 
looked — a lofty, distinguished man, with a distrait and 
absent expression, but scrupulously polite. 

“Sir,” he said, “it is most kind of you to respond to 
my unceremonious invitation, and to bring your friend 
with you. The Countess has been much gratified by 
your acting to-night. Pray enter the carriage. The 
Countess du Pic-Adam.” 

The young men entered the carriage and placed them- 
selves on the front seat, opposite to the Count and 
Countess. 

By the light of the flambeaux the Count certainly 
seemed younger than he had at first appeared. He had 
a fair, steadfast countenance, and a suave, bland manner 
and tone. He seemed to de Brie, who was a student of 
character, to be descended from a mixed ancestry. 

“Madame la Comtesse,” he said, “has been so de- 
lighted with your acting to-night. Monsieur la Yalliere, 


12 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


that she wished to be acquainted more closely with one 
who has given her so much pleasure.” 

By the light of the torches a lovely face, buried in 
masses of white fur, looked out from the corner of the 
carriage upon the two young men, and a melodious 
voice said — 

‘‘Monsieur de Brie, I believe, is the performer of 
that lovely obbligato to Mademoiselle Mori’s song.” 

“ Madame la Comtesse is perfectly right,” said la Yal- 
liere, eagerly, “and my friend has his violin with him, 
so that if after supper Madame would like to hear the 
air again ?” — 

The uneasy motion of the carriage over the rough 
pavement prevented much conversation, but the dis- 
tance to the city gate was short, and after they had 
passed the drawbridge and the glacis the road was easier, 
and a few minutes afterwards the carriage turned into 
an avenue lighted by the fitful moonbeams, which trav- 
ersed a small park leading to a modern chateau. I^u- 
merous servants received tlie Count and his lady in the 
great hall, and the two young men were conducted to a 
private room where they might to some extent make 
themselves ready for supper. 

The supper-table was spread before a large and noble 
fireplace of carved stone reaching almost to the roof of 
a large salle. Screens of Chinese -work sheltered the 
party, and beyond them stretched the dark and limitless 
shadows of an unknown and mysterious world. The 
Countess had changed her dress, and came to the sup- 


THE C0UNTE8S EVE. 


13 


per-table in a robe of white satin, with strings of pearls 
in her hair. She had rich chestnut hair and deep violet 
eyes. The young men thought her the most mysteri- 
ously lovely creature they had ever seen. 

The supper was delicate and delicious, and the 
Burgundy of the choicest growth. The conversation 
turned naturally upon art and the stage, and la Yalliere, 
warmed with the generous wine, became eloquent on 
this theme. 

“ I can conceive nothing more deliglitful,” said the 
Countess, than this art, which gives you the power of 
pleasing others simply by the exertion of a faculty the 
exertion of which must be such a delight to yourself. 
I can think of nothing more attractive than the power 
of representing, at your own choice, Nature in all her 
vagaries — of treating at will all the diverse paths of 
life — of the following in your own person all the fort- 
unes, all the vicissitudes, all the hopes and conceptions 
of a man. The world seems to me to be at your feet. 
You live every kind of life at will.” 

“That is the ideal actor,” said la Yalliere, “not at all 
the commonplace one. I have often been amused to see 
an old man — not a bad actor either — go through all the 
little tricks of action and tone of voice which he had 
practised for thirty years, because he had been taught 
so long ago that these were the correct adjuncts of the 
part, and never once during the whole of that time liv- 
ing in, realizing, the part himself. For myself, I seem 
to live a different life each night. I seldom act even 


14 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


tlie same part precisely in the same way twice together. 
I seem to see fresh meanings and purposes in my part. 
Fresh complications occur, fresh incidents suggest them- 
selves. I am born again every night.’’ 

“ It is an inconvenient practice on the part of an 
actor,” said de Brie, smiling ; my friend has been 
much blamed for it.” 

‘‘Art,” said la Yalliere, “must never be crippled or 
confined. Indeed, all life must be free and untram- 
melled, or it is not life. He who would be really a 
man must know all that the life of man can be, must 
be free to choose and to enjoy, free to test his powers 
in all directions, to taste of all the enjoyments and fac- 
ulties at his disposal ; to probe to the uttermost the pos- 
sibilities not only of the seen but of the unseen ex- 
istence; to feel and to enjoy to the very full all that 
Nature possesses, or that man can dream, of life and 
thought. Give me the man who acts on the impulse 
of his nature — not upon a balanced, bourgeois consid- 
eration of what is due to his class, or his character, or 
his principles.” 

“ You have not. Monsieur la Yalliere,” said the Count, 
looking very fixedly at Felix, and speaking very slowly, 
“you have not, I venture to think, put all this theory 
of life into practice, except upon the stage. Otherwise, 
I hardly think that you would speak as cheerfully as 
you do.” 

His tone was so solemn, and his manner so marked, that 
the two young men looked at him with some surprise. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


16 


The Countess also raised her eyes, and it seemed to 
Claude de Brie, who watched her closely, that a little 
shudder passed over her exquisite form, and that her 
eyes were turned furtively in the direction of her hus- 
band, with a lingering, hopeless look. 

There was a short but awkward pause. La Yalliere 
seemed for the moment unaccountably silenced, but be- 
fore de Brie could recover himself sufficiently to speak 
the Count seemed to make an effort, and, as though 
conscious of his duty as host, continued in a gayer 
tone. 

“ This talk is too grave for a supper after the play. 
You cannot possibly, gentlemen, return to the city to- 
night. The gates will not open even to my carriages. 
My people will, I hope, find you all things necessary, 
and I should like you to see our gardens in the morn- 
ing light. The private garden is considered by some to 
be very quaint and well laid out. We call it” — and the 
Count looked kindly, and even tenderly, across the table 
at his young wife — “ we call it Paradise.” 

The Countess’s face fiushed with a kind of delighted 
surprise, but it relapsed again in a moment into its usual 
listless, hopeless expression, as the kindly glance faded 
as rapidly from her husband’s eyes. 

“Paradise,” said la Yalliere, speaking apparently to 
the great branched candelabra before him, “Paradise. 
That was what I was meaning when I spoke of the pos- 
sibilities of existence, whether seen or unseen. I did not 
know that it was so near,” 


16 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


As he spoke a servant from behind his chair filled up 
his glass with the luscious Burgundy. 

‘‘Felix,” said his friend, across the table, in a soft, 
quiet voice, but with no affectation of an aside, “ do not 
drink any more wine. You have had enough.” 

The actor looked for a moment across the table into 
his friend’s eyes. Then he put his glass back from him 
and rose quietly from his seat. 

“I promised Madame,” he said, “ that she should hear 
the air on the violin. If one of the servants would bring 
the instrument from the hall this might be a suitable 
moment.” 

“ It is only the obbligato that Madame can hear,” said 
de Brie. “We shall not have Mademoiselle Mori’s love- 
ly notes ; but in all beautiful compositions of sound, or 
color, or form, there is, just so far as they are pure and 
perfect, a unity and a beauty of which no part can exist 
selfishly or apart from the rest. So that, in the simple 
air as drawn from the strings, it is possible that Madame 
may recognize something of the old fascination. Let us 
hope that she may.” 

“ I engage that she will,” la Yalliere broke in eagerly; 
“ it is the prerogative of all things in IS’ature — all things 
lovely, true, and ideal — to act harmoniously together. 
Madame la Comtesse” — he seemed again to be address- 
ing the candelabra — “cannot escape from this necessity, 
fur it is a condition of the highest loveliness — even of 
her own.” 

De Brie’s advice had evidently not been given too soon. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


17 


While he spoke, as if to cover his last words, la Yal- 
liere had risen and drawn back his chair from the table 
and had placed it by the side of the loftj^, carved fire- 
place, and the Count withdrew his chair from the end 
of the table to a position not far from him ; the Count- 
ess moved from her seat to a settee sheltered by one of 
the large screens, and de Brie, coming round the table, 
stood leaning against it in front of the fire, his violin in 
his hand. 

La Yalliere had taken just enough wine to excite his 
fancy, and to produce that sensation of expectancy un- 
der which the strangest things may happen without ex- 
citing surprise. He sat back quietly in his chair, a 
sense of restraint and caution upon him, his head lean- 
ing against the carved stone pilaster of the mantle- 
piece, and de Brie began to play. 

A plaintive, continuous note, searching back into a 
past eternity, stretching forward into all time, stirred 
his senses into activity, and la Yalliere looked across to 
where the Countess sat. 

She lay back upon the cushioned settee, her sad eyes 
fixed upon the dancing firelight, with no expression in 
them but that of a resigned weariness — of^ hopeless 
consciousness of mistake, of a mistaken effort and of an 
aim that had failed — a resigned weariness that roused 
itself every now and then to look up with a momentary 
hope into her husband’s face, as with a longing for 
some interest in life and in him, only to fall back again 
before his polished, stony, absent air. 


18 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


Behind her the fantastic forms of strange birds and 
flowers on the great Chinese screen shut out the shad- 
owy distance of the vast salon, and before lier hovered 
restlessly the plumed whiteness of a great fan that lay, 
rather than was held, in her listless hands. 

The plaintive note changed into the clear, holy joy of 
a pure love that meets its fellow and is glad, and la Yal- 
liere’s eyes gleamed with a sudden terror indescribable 
in words, for from behind the gay, flowering screen, out 
of the weird darkness beyond, there glided a faint, shad- 
owy figure and stood beside the Countess’s couch, lean- 
ing towards her as if to speak. Faint and almost in- 
definite at first, the figure became momentarily more 
distinct. A strange, absorbing feeling took possession 
of la Yalliere’s mind — in answer, as it seemed, to a cor- 
responding effort on the part of the appearance itself — 
an intense desire for a clearer vision ; for though the 
figure apparently concentrated its attention entirely 
upon the Countess, yet there emanated from it, so to 
speak, an indescribable eflluence of temptation and at- 
trac£ion, luring la Yalliere’s fancy to endeavmr to see 
more clearly, to be better acquainted with what he saw. 

As the^bewitching strains of the violin continued, 
and this mysterious intruder became more clear and dis- 
tinct to his excited sense, it seemed to la Yalliere that a 
figure, habited as a French abbe, was leaning on the arm 
of the Countess’s seat and whispering in her ear. It 
seemed that its presence was unperceived by the Count- 
ess herself, or by any of the other persons in the room ; 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


19 


but after a few seconds of this strange intercourse — if 
such it could he called — the attitude and manner of the 
Countess changed inexplicably. She raised her eyes 
from the fire, and her look had undergone a surprising 
change. The hopeless weariness was gone, and in its 
place was an expression of startled, expectant interest 
and excitement, subdued and chastened, but real and 
strong. Did la Yalliere deceive himself, or, in the soft, 
dreamy light across the tremulous motion of the fan, 
was this altered look directed towards himself? Did it 
say — certainly he interpreted it so to say — “In place 
of stony indifference, of cold abstraction and repug- 
nance almost, shall I not find, can I not find, the love 
for which I yearn — the sympathy and tenderness — else- 
where? And if elsewhere, surely here.” 

The glamour of a dream seemed to pervade the whole 
scene — the softened light, the leaping flame of the 
wood fire, the strains of the violin — and over all a 
sense of mystic atmosphere, within which all things 
seemed transfigured, a thin golden haze of soft light, in 
which la Yalliere’s face and slight figure became more 
attractive, and the loveliness of the Countess more love- 
ly still ; and always, in la Yalliere’s eyes, the figure by 
the couch became clearer and more clear, till at last it 
turned its face directly towards the young man, and 
the eyes met his with a quite friendly, confidential 
gaze. 

It was certainly the figure of a French abbd, but the 
expression of the face was such as no French abb4 — no, 


20 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


nor any other man — had ever displayed. For the mo- 
ment it was that of an almost amiable suavity — almost, 
because the peculiarity of the face consisted in the con- 
viction that the sight of it produced, that any expres- 
sion it might wear was only for a moment ; that any 
amiable or pleasing expression especially was but the 
result of effort, the mere mask of an actor, not the re- 
sult of amiability itself. 

It was an expression instinct with a sense of change, 
infinitely fugitive, protean, indicating nothing, it seem- 
ed, so much as an indefinite capacity, which, in what- 
ever direction it might tend, was certainly not suggest- 
ive of good. 

This sense of change extended even to the features, 
so that no man could have positively defined them even 
to himself, much less have conveyed any idea of them 
to others. The most that could be said of them was, 
that they conveyed a general impression of power and 
of a certain distinction ; not exactly, however, in the 
sense in which men generally understand the word, for 
it seemed to arise from the fact that the origin was in- 
definite and immaterial rather than as springing from 
matter or as born of race. 

The friendly gaze, if it were friendly, penetrated into 
la Yalliere’s nature as no human gaze had ever done 
before. Every thought of his heart, to the very depths 
of his being, seemed familiar to this strange infiuence 
and responsive to its call. Every tendency and facility 
which human frailty uses or suggests, every leaning of 


COUNTESS EVE. 2i 

human life to the side of enjoyment, seemed to awake 
and to respond. 

“ Be bold,” it seemed to saj. “ Carry out your own 
theory of life. Enjoy, prove all things. Test the pow- 
ers that have been given you, doubtless for use, by a 
beneficent Providence. Above all things, be bold !” 

La Yalliere was not frightened. There was not even 
any feeling of wonder or of surprise connected with 
the appearance of this figure. What was produced was 
merely a sense of added power and a fresh life in every 
faculty and desire, of supreme luxury in the quickened 
perception of the shadowy room, of the glowing fire, of 
the dulcet music ; above all, of that lovely face and figure 
leaning forward from the large settee, with its back- 
ground of fantastic screen, and the wonderful, entran- 
cing look of the violet eyes. The strange, intruding 
figure with its intense individuality seemed to shrink 
into the background and to wish to be forgotten. Per- 
haps its work was done. 

The music ceased, and the Countess, with a look of 
w'earied falling back upon a disappointing present, arose 
and, thanking Claude de Brie politely, left the room. 
The Count summoned some domestics, and was on the 
point of consigning the two young men to their care, 
when la Yailiere, inspired by a sudden impulse, spoke 
to him. 

“ Monsieur le Comte,” he said, “ I should have thought 
that your excellent Burgundy had turned my head, but 
that the appearance was so persistent and distinct. Mon- 


32 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 

sieur I’Abbe, I presume — the ecclesiastic who was lean- 
ing on Madarae’s couch a moment ago, I could wish to 
have seen more of him — is probably not too desirous of 
making the acquaintance of strangers.” 

He spoke, scarcely knowing what he said ; the Bur- 
gundy had perhaps been more potent than he knew. 

Something in his words, or in his tone, seemed to 
strike the Count as, with the echo of some familiar 
thought, he looked the young man straight in the eyes. 

“Monsieur I’Abbe,” he said, “the directeur of Ma- 
dame la Corntesse, is at present from home on a visit d 
ses terres, I do not know who you may have seen. I 
saw no one but ourselves. But there are other beings 
than ourselves constantly around us — the remembrance 
of other days, the effects of past actions, the conse- 
quences of past sins, the trail, taint, poison of commit- 
ted sin. Some we know and see, some w^e never see ; 
they are perhaps the more fatal. You spoke of a man^ 
had you told me that you had seen her — 

La Yalliere gazed at him with surprise. 

“She must be always near me,” the Count went on, 
as if speaking to himself; “always near me, and yet I 
never see her — never see her. May God, in His un- 
speakable pity, have mercy on me when I do.” 


II. 


The young men were shown into a lofty room in 
which were two beds and other luxurious furniture. 
Dark hangings of flowered silk covered the walls. A 
servant deposited liqueurs and cake upon a small table, 
and left them alone. 

They were neither of them inclined to sleep. La 
Yalliere, especially, was too excited even to think. De 
Brie was startled by what had passed between his friend 
and the Count. He seated himself before the fire, the 
bright-leaping flames of which seemed spirits and deni- 
zens of an ethereal life. 

“ You were not jesting with the Count?” he said. 

‘‘ Jesting !” said la Yalliere. “ I saw him — the Abb6 
— as I see you.” 

“I believe you. The wonder is, not that you saw 
him, but that we, all of us, see so little. The whole of 
Nature is ensouled. There is no such thing as matter, 
as material existence. Everything is instinct with the 
nature of God, or of the Enemy of God.” 

La Yalliere did not reply. He sat looking listlessly 
into the fire, seeing perhaps in the dancing flames the 
face of the Countess Eve. 

We have entered into a new life,” de Brie went on. 
“The old centuries slumbered in a shadowy dream-life, 


24 


THE C0UNfE88 EVE. 


a life of the unseen and of the soul. They had the 
truth, but they did not know it ; we know it, but have 
lost its possession. I have often thought, but to-night 
it comes upon me with an irresistible certainty, that 
you are in yourself at once the embodiment of both — 
of the mystical life of the past centuries, and of the 
material life of to-day. You have the ignorant instinct 
of the past towards the unseen and the ideal ; and you 
have the animal instinct of the present, untrammelled 
by the new-born conscience and responsibility which, in 
most men, stands in the way of the moral abandon 
which is necessary for the magnetic union with the un- 
seen. To you, if to no one else, it should assume palpa- 
ble form.” 

“You do not seem very complimentarj^,” said la 
Valliere, dreamily. “Have you more to say 

It was not the first time that he had listened to such 
lengthy dissertations from his friend. 

“ You alwaj’s remind me,” de Brie went on, “ of those 
old Greek natures, half human, half fay, to whom be- 
longed the secrets of Nature and of the sky, of the ele- 
ments and of the spirit-world — pure animals such as we 
see among us now, our dogs and falcons, the creatures 
of their training and circumstances, but how perfect of 
their kind !” 

“Really,” said la Yalliere, laughing and rousing him- 
self from his indolent attitude before the blazing fire, 
“you are more and more polite. Dogs and falcons! 
What next, I wonder?” 


^HE COUNTESS EVE. 


as 

De Brie sat looking at him with that unique and 
inexplicable attraction which exists only between man 
and man, and very often between men of singularly 
opposite nature and opinion ; but indeed la Valliere’s 
attraction was so great that it was almost impossible to 
see him without admiration. He stood with his back 
to the stately hearth, the festooned walls of the room, 
the flowered-silk hangings and tapestries aglow with 
the fitful light. The finely cut, delicate features, the 
lofty grace of pose and manner, were never more ap- 
parent to his friend than on this night. His heart 
yearned more than ever towards the matchless fasci- 
nation of this facile, attractive nature — plastic as clay 
in the potter’s hand, and yet attractive as though it 
had absorbed the grace of all natures into its own. 

“ He is nothing in himself,” he thought ; “ he is noth- 
ing but a lovely mask. This highly strung, sympathetic 
nature, this magnetic temperament, this careless, happy, 
Greek conscience and unshackled will and purpose, con- 
fined by no scruple, bounded by no law — to what fell 
use ndght it not be put? How perfect and beautiful 
an instrument and dwelling-place for a malefic spirit to 
use and to inhabit !” 

******** 

And this stately house that seemed to him so empty, 
so swept and garnished for the delight of such few per- 
sons as he had seen to inhabit it, what was it but the 
stage of a concourse of beings, the scene of a conflict 
terrible and enduring as life and the grave? Alone! 


26 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


we are never alone. Dead! nothing dies. The dead 
ancestor lives again in the so-called innocent child. The 
fonl deed, the craven act, the sensual sin, stands out 
suddenly face to face with the pale, saintly girl, and 
confuses and mars her life. “Alone! we are never 
alone 

He said these words aloud, for there came into his 
mind a sudden sense of supreme mystery, even of ter- 
ror — of the infinite consequence of the next moment’s 
action and word. A sense of dominant and all but 
overpowering, malefic force, of the need of prayer and 
of rescue. Vaguely as in a dream, dimly as in the dis- 
tant past, he seemed conscious of the birth of sin — con- 
scious of committed sin which, through the long process 
of time, was at that moment, by some fatal necromancy, 
drawing himself and la Valliere and the Countess Eve, 
and all whom he knew, within its netted toils. He too 
rose from his seat. 

La Valliere was standing on the hearth, his figure 
thrown into strong relief by the firelight, by the con- 
trasted shine and gloom. His face, tisually so suave 
and placid, had a scared and set look. 

“ De Brie,” he said, “ do you remember that night at 
Mesmer’s in Paris, wdien the girl who is so like the 
Queen was in a trance, and you dragged me away, and 
you said that it was not a girl but a fiend ? Something 
like that is in this house — now.” 

“ I took you away from Mesmer’s,” said de Brie, 
“ because I knew that it could not be the Queen, though 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


27 


it was so like her. I said it was a devilish delusion and 
the work of a fiend.” 

“They are here,” said la Yalliere, now with some 
bitterness in his tone. “You are a saint; they will 
not suffer you to see or to feel them near. They know 
that it is useless to tempt you — but they are here.” 

“If any of us are tempted, if the house be haunted 
by evil spirits,” said de Brie, “let us kneel down and 
pray.” And without waiting to see whether la Yalliere 
followed his example or not, he knelt down and recited 
a prayer, not long before used at the jubilee of 1751. 

“ O Father of light and God of all truth, purge the 
whole world from all errors, abuses, corruptions, and 
sins. Beat down the standard of Satan, and set up 
everywhere the standard of Christ. Abolish the reign 
of sin, and establish the kingdom of grace in all hearts. 
Let humility triumph over pride and ambition ; charity 
over hatred, envy, and malice; purity and temperance 
over lust and excess; meekness over passion, and dis- 
interestedness and poverty of spirit over covetousness 
and the love of this perishable world. Let the gospel 
of Christ, in faith and practice, prevail throughout the 
world.” 

De Brie rose from his knees and looked at his friend. 
Whether la Yalliere had knelt or not he did not know, 
but the scared look was gone out of his eyes. 

“ It is time we went to bed,” he said. “ To-morrow 
we must get back into the city, somehow. I have a 
rehearsal at eleven o’clock.” 


2S 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


Ill liis unsettled sleep that night de Brie had a dream. 

He dreamed that he was in a valley, in the moon- 
light, in an autumn night. On the grassy slopes and 
in the rocky paths of the valley, in the mystic light, 
numberless shadowy figures were walking, straying up 
and down, carrying branches of palms, olives, and wil- 
lows. The cold, cruel light of the moon — dead, pitiless, 
and chill, in foil and enmity to the warm and life-giv- 
ing sunlight — cast black and death-like shadows from 
the trees and moving, flitting forms. 

It seemed to de Brie that he stood for some time re- 
garding these people with wonder. Then he was con- 
scious that one with a mocking visor that concealed 
his face stood by his side, and he asked him, ‘‘Who are 
these? and what do they do?’^ 

And the fantastic mime answered, 

“These are Hebrews. They €eek, on the seventh 
day of the Feast of Tabernacles, for the ‘shadow of 
the shadow,’ for so their Kabbis teach them out of 
Deuteronomy. ‘Their shadow is departed from them.’ 
This does not relate, they tell them, to the natural shad- 
'W, which any one can see, but to the ‘ shadow of the 
shadow,’ the reflection of the first, which is given only 
to the elect.” 

“And do these see it?” asked de Brie. 

“No,” said the mask, with a rippling, mocking laugh- 
ter in his tone. “Watch and see.” 

And it seemed to de Brie that, as he still looked, the 
fantastic figures were not only those of Hebrews, but 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


29 


appeared in the dress and shapes of all peoples and 
races, and that among them were many whom de Brie 
knew ; and in the white moonlight, that drew such ter- 
rible sharp black shadows, the distant drives and vistas 
of the wood, which was in itself weird and cabal istical, 
and haunted by such strange forms, became peopled by 
a throng of shapes and figures more spectral and shad- 
owy still, and resounded with echoing footsteps more 
uncertain and remote, all deriving their existence from 
these shadows, and from these wandering, pacing forms, 
who, still carrying their branches of palms and olives 
and willows, continued their fantastic search ; and the 
sins of the fathers were reproduced in the children, and 
phantoms, that were at once shadowy and evil, gave 
birth to phantoms more shadowy and evil still. 

And de Brie said to the masker at his side — 

“ This is a great mystery, that matter can beget spirit, 
a fleshly lust beget intellect, sin beget a being capable 
of, but missing, a divine life.’’ 

And the mocking demon by his side laughed, and 
said — 

“ By a kind of necromancy a man’s shadow has been,- 
known to walk and talk of itself ; but its shadow ! what 
is that 

And the strange moonlit dance went on solemnly, as 
with a set purpose, but futile in result and in fruit, and 
de Brie said — 

“ Is there then no hope for these ?” 

And the mime by his side took off his mask, and 


30 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


de Brie woke at the horror of his face, and in his wak- 
ing ear were the scornful words — 

There is none.’^ 

And witli a start he awoke to the fresh spring morn- 
ing and the light. 


III. 


When the young men awoke they found that their 
windows looked out upon a prospect of soft and tran- 
quil loveliness, quiet and peaceful as a happy dream. 
Immediately below the windows was a terrace, and be- 
yond the terrace an orchard of fruit-trees, then leafless, 
but just breaking into blossom, the twisted branches 
gray with lichens and sparkling with dew-drops ; and be- 
yond this again a stretch of park and pastures and vine- 
yards, and then, in the far distance, the Jura Mount- 
ains, with their dark fir forests and escarpments of 
white rocks. Between the windows and these 'distant 
hills shadowy gradations of light revealed the ridges of 
vineyard and woodland with a delicate, faint tracery of 
outline, and a clear distinctness, in the softly tinted 
morning air. It seemed to de Brie’s troubled waking- 
sense that such a dawn as this might have broke over 
that other Paradise in the first mornings of the world. 

An early meal was served to the young men, and a 
carriage conveyed them to the city, where, as la Yalliere 
had said, they had to attend the rehearsal of a new play. 

To the intelligent actor there is something strangely 
suggestive and fascinating in this correlation of parts, 
wlien the aflPairs of that which most men consent to call 


33 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


real life are placed in close connection, are contrasted 
with, perhaps incorporated into, the ideal world of cre- 
ative art. 

This interwoven tissue of fancy and action made 
la Yalliere’s world, already fantastic and bizarre, more 
fantastic still. The characters upon the stage mingled 
with his conception of those he met with in the streets 
and houses of the city. Nothing seemed strange or im- 
possible to him, nothing surprised him. The peculiar 
charm of his acting consisted in the fact that it was not 
acting — the stage was as real to him as life, life as real 
to him as the stage. 

The play in which he was now taking a part was one 
of those intensely French pieces which no audience ex- 
cept a French one, if it were not the audience which ap- 
plauded Terence, could possibly have appreciated. The 
strain upon an actor in such a piece, the interest of 
which consists entirely in dialogue and chiefly in repar- 
tee and equivoque — repartee, it is true, exquisitely ap- 
propriate to the individual character, but still simply 
repartee — is tremendous, especially before an audience 
which recognizes and appreciates the faintest nuance of 
character and phrase. 

La Yalliere came out of the theatre exhausted, even 
shattered both in mind and body. The excitement of 
the past night, the Countess with her sudden and unex- 
pected look, the strange figure by the couch with its 
terribly irresistible influence, the restless sleep troubled 
with dreams, the glimpse of Paradise in the early dawn, 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


33 


all this had strung his mind and wrought his body to a 
pitch of nervous excitement. The singular correlative 
condition of existence as it appeared to him, the con- 
stantly reiterated point and antithesis of the dialogue 
in which he had taken part, and the strange antithesis 
and uncertainty of the real and the fictional — which 
might be the one and which the other — dogging his 
footsteps in the life of every day, produced a condition 
which was not far short of delirium. When he left the 
playhouse he wandered restlessly about the streets. 

Not far from the theatre, stretching westward from 
the gate by which the friends had left the city the night 
before and returned to it in the morning, the glacis of 
the old walls had been planted with rows of trees, now 
of considerable size. Along one of these shaded paths, 
at that time of the day almost deserted, la Valliere took 
his way. 

The peaceful scene that stretched before his eyes, the 
vista of bare, intricately woven branches, the grass-bor- 
dered paths, the quiet figures dotted here and there, 
soothed his weary senses and lured his imagination to 
retrace once more the startling fantasies of the past 
night. Once more he sat by the bright wood fire in the 
chateau ; once more the strange birds and fiowers of the 
fantastic screen quivered before his eyes ; once more he 
saw that slight, perfect form, that lovely face, lean ea- 
gerly forward as if to meet him — a sight that no man 
who had once seen it could easily forget; once more, 
but now fainter and more uncertain, he saw the intrud- 
3 


84 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


ing figure of the Abbe, if it were an abb^, and his 
lieart beat suddenly with an intense longing that this 
entrancing scene might again , take form in substance 
and in fact. 

As this longing became more intense, and he slowly 
paced the straight, tree-bordered path, it flashed sud- 
denly" upon his recollection that it was only when the 
strange visitant had stolen softly from out of the dark- 
ness, and had spoken, or had appeared to speak, to the 
unconscious Countess, that she had manifested any in- 
terest whatever in himself. However she might have 
been attracted by la Valliere’s acting, and have wished 
to make his acquaintance, yet, as the evening drew on, 
her manner, so far as it had shown any interest at all, 
had seemed to concentrate itself entirely on de Brie. 
It was not till after this mysterious intercourse that her 
manner had chanored, and her heart had seemed to en- 
tertain new aspirations and new desires. 

As this thought occurred to la Valliere with greater 
and still greater certainty of recollection, it seemed that 
his longing changed, and that an intense desire formed 
itself in his mind to see this strange personage again, as 
though he felt that it was through its mediation, and 
this only, that his object could be obtained. But along 
all the distant vista of straight walk and grassy verge 
no such figure, intensely as he sought it, met his gaze. 

But it seemed singular, even to la Yalliere’s e.xcited 
thought, that, though this strange medium was absent, 
the scene by the fireside repeated itself with a surpris- 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


35 


ing freshness and intensity in his fancy, an intensity so 
overpowering as to absorb all his faculties in a burning 
desire to see it again enacted ; and, by a curious reac- 
tion, into a settled purpose to see — almost a prayer that 
he might see — this mysterious figure once more. “ Who- 
ever, whatever it might be, from above or from below, 
be it good or evil,” the concentrated will seemed to cry, 
“ appear ! show yourself again !” 

But down the long alleys, and through the thickly 
planted trees, there was still no sign. 

He had by this time reached a bend of the fortified 
fosse which concealed the city more completely from 
sight, and as far as his eye could reach, the glacis was 
even more absolutely solitary than before. In the dis- 
tance, where the wall turned again, the quaint, sharp 
turrets of a city gate cut the misty pallor of the sky. 
Between la Yalliere and this distant object, over the 
long stretch of glacis and planted walk, not a single 
figure could be seen. 

He advanced some way along the silent avenue, and 
an overpowering feeling impressed his senses that 
something was near. It seemed that through the veil 
of sunny ether that surrounded him some strange per- 
sonality was approaching, and endeavoring to make it- 
self visible ; an excited desperation of feeling, of min- 
gled apprehension and desire, of attraction and repulsion, 
resolved itself finally into a fixed determination to see. 

The next moment, by the third tree from him on the 
right hand, la Yalliere saw the Abbd again. 


36 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


He seemed to advance towards la Valliere with an 
insinuating gesture and attitude, and that singular sen- 
sation, as of the presence of a mask, forced itself again 
upon his mind, a masked form, a masked nature, a 
masked purpose ; and in a singularly curious way there 
seemed, on the part of the stranger, to exist a feeling 
which corresponded with the feeling in la Yalliere’s 
mind; on his part a suave, attractive friendliness, and 
yet a craven fear; on la Yalliere’s part, a desire at one 
moment to meet the singular visitant half-way, at the 
next an equally strong impulse to turn and dee from 
him — a complicated dual impression which, one would 
surely think, must involve the two in a hopeless mesh 
and net of intricate wandering and loss. 

As la Yalliere awaited his approach the Abbe seemed 
about to speak more than once, or possibly he did speak 
without la Yalliere’s being able to catch a sound; but 
at last something like the faintest soft whisper, a courte- 
ous and persuasive voice, was perceptible to his sense, 
and he seemed to hear these words — 

“If Monsieur Felix la Yalliere will go to the vesper 
service at the Convent of Our Lady of Pity this even- 
ing, at five o’clock, he will find his friend Monsieur de 
Brie, and he will also see another friend.” 

“And the other friend?” la Yalliere himself seemed 
to say in the same hushed undertone. 

“Is Madame la Comtesse du Pic-Adam ?” 

“If I am not mistaken,” said la Yalliere, still concen- 
trating all his power of will to keep the figure of the 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


37 


Abbe within his sense of vision and to hear his voice 
— “if I am not mistaken I have had the pleasure al- 
ready of seeing Monsieur PAbbd at the chateau of Mon- 
sieur le Comte, but, what was somewhat singular. Mon- 
sieur le Comte assured me that he was unconscious of 
his presence.” 

A most striking and singular expression formed itself 
upon the other’s face — an expression compounded of 
mocking amusement, or what would have been amuse- 
ment in other men, and an unspeakably malefic and 
vindictive look. 

“I am nevertheless well acquainted with Monsieur le 
Comte, and he with me,” said the fair-spoken yet ma- 
lefic voice. “I may even in some sense claim him as 
parent or perhaps jparrainP 

To la Yalliere’s excited fancy, trained as it was to de- 
tect play and parody upon words, a s*ingular ambiguity 
seemed to lurk in this speech, more so than perhaps the 
words might warrant. 

“Parmm,” he said, “ may mean, I believe, either a 
godfather or a soldier appointed to be the executioner 
of his comrade. I trust that this is not the function of 
Monsieur I’Abbd.” 

“It may come even to that,” the baleful voice re- 
plied. 

There was a pause. In spite of la Yalliere’s intense 
desire to see and hear, the figure became every moment 
more indistinct — the voice fainter. 

“Monsieur la Yalliere will not fail to attend the ves- 


38 


THE C0UNTE88 EVE. 


pers this evening” — the empty, misty air seemed full 
of tlie soft yet mocking words — “ and above all things 
let him remember to be bold.” 

The empty air must have produced the sound, for 
down the long perspective of terraced walk, as far as 
the distant pinnacles of the city gate, no form or figure 
could be seen. 


La Yallieke did not fail to attend the vesper service 
at the Convent of Our Lady of Pity the same afternoon. 
The nuns used the parish church, to which their con- 
vent adjoined, for their service, and as their singing 
was extremely good, the vesper service was the fashion- 
able lounge of the city idlers of both sexes. 

When la Yalliere entered the church a considerable 
portion of the nave was occupied by a numerous audi- 
ence, seated upon chairs. Pausing for a few moments 
on the outskirts of this crowd, Jie at last perceived a 
group, near the antique screen that stretched in front 
of the chancel, that seemed familiar to him. Making 
liis way quietly round the edge of the crowd, he found 
that this group consisted of the Countess, accompanied 
by two girls, of his friend de Brie, of two young offi- 
cers of the regiment in garrison whom he had already 
met, and of a little old Yicomte, a cadet of a noble fam- 
ily in the neighborhood, a man notorious for existing 
simply for the purpose of retailing to one acquaintance 
after another the last scandalous story he could hear 
or invent. 

“Ah, Monsieur la Yalliere,’’ he wiiispered, as soon 
as the young actor approached him, after addressing 


40 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


the others, “ how pale the lovely Countess looks ! Fancy 
that old don of a husband of hers, instead of hastening 
with her to Paris, settling down in this villanous little 
town, which I have described in a word as stupidity 
personified. Not bad, was it? No wonder she looks 
ennuyee. How could she be otherwise with that mon- 
ster of a husband, cold as his own snow-peak? He is 
doubtless right. She would not be his long in Paris. 
Besides, he is a great man here. She looks to you, mon 
ami., to se desennuyerP 

He did not think it necessary to tell la Valliere that 
he had given precisely the same advice to both the 
young officers, and used the same words exactly, at a 
dejeuner in the city, at which he had been present that 
morning. 

The parish church in which the nuns sang was an 
ancient Gothic structure of the thirteenth century, at 
the time we are speaking of very much neglected and 
decayed. The pavement of the nave was broken and 
uneven, and the hand of time had softened every carved 
column and sculptured tomb to a gracious mellowness 
of outline. The short spring day was drawing to a 
close, and behind the lofty rood-screen, with its tower- 
ing crucifix, dark shadows, thrown from the lights of 
distant altars, brooded over the space beyond, and as- 
cended to the lofty, foliated roofs and to the arcades of 
the aisles. The gigantic, reed-like pillars of the nave 
loomed vaguely in the sombre light. 

The Countess had chosen a seat near one of these 


The C0VNTE8S EVE. 


41 


massive pillars, by which she sat together with the two 
girls, her companions. The old Yicomte and the two 
officers, who were both noble, sat immediately behind 
them, and de Brie and la Yalliere still farther back ; but 
the arrangement of the chairs around the column left a 
clear space between the two young men and the Count- 
ess, which it was easy to overpass. 

From the grated gallery of the nuns, beyond the 
shadowy veil of screen and crucifix, floated down the 
soft, melodious harmonies of women’s voices, in wave 
after wave of delicate sound, like the measured refrain 
of an angelic choir: 

“Missus est Gabriel angelus.” 

The notes fell upon de Erie’s mind with a sense of 
peace and calm, pure and undeflled by stain of earth as 
was the heart of that Holy Maiden to whom the Angel 
Gabriel was sent. 

It would be difficult to find greater divergence of 
motive than that which had brought the two friends to 
the same place and service. De Brie constantly at 
tended the vespers of the nuns. He had even composed 
music which they had sung. He came partly from love 
of the music, partly because the sacred ness of the place 
and of the words was congenial to his spirit, which 
found and heard in every incident and sound of daily 
life something holy and inspiring, something that left 
the spirit better and more refined than before. Himself 
a skilled musician, he had never for a moment lost the 


42 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


divine message of music in the outward form. Music 
was to him not a scientifically balanced system of notes. 
It was an infinite and eternal voice speaking to the soul 
of man. 

We know something of the motives which have 
brought la Yalliere to the service. He had been pres- 
ent before, in accordance with the fashion of the city 
in which, for a time, he found himself. To-day, how- 
ever, he came from no motives of fashion ; his mind 
and senses were lost in a chaos of excitement, and of 
conflicting strifes and ideas. 

The Stahat Mater was being sung to a motet which 
de Brie himself had written for the nuns. In the con- 
trast between its sad strains and the fashionable assem- 
blage there was something which, at the moment, struck 
his fancy with a sense of reality; even the rustling of 
silk, the slight noises, the occasional whisper, did not jar 
upon his ear, rather they seemed to him part of the 
great mystery of sound, and of the mystery which sound 
conveys. 

“Sancta Mater, istud agas, 

Crucifixi fige plagas 

Cordi meo valide. 

Tui ITati vulnerati 
Tam dignati pro me pati 

Poenas mecum divide.” 

The mystery that transmutes, with a wondrous alche- 
my, the long, weary hours of pain into the happiest 
life ; the mystery of sacrifice and of pain ; the mystery 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


43 


which is in itself a personal, plastic Force; the mystery 
expressed in sound by concerted discord — must surely 
be able to absorb into itself the frivolous and disturbing: 
elements of life. 

He was engaged, rapt in an ecstasy of wonder and de- 
light, in forming more exquisitely suggestive chords, if 
any such existed, by which these ideas might, if possible, 
be adequately expressed, when he was suddenly startled 
by la Valliere’s hand laid upon his arm. 

“ Do you know that abbe who is standing by the pil- 
lar speaking to Madame la Comtesse?” 

“ Abbd replied de Brie, crossly, “ yon are dreaming ; 
there is no one there. There is no one by the pillar 
speaking to the Countess.” 

“No one!” said laYalliere beneath his breath. “No 
one ! Do you mean to tell me that you do not see him ? 
and she is listening to him too! Look! she turns her 
head !” 

It was true. The Countess at that moment, inspired 
apparently by some sudden impulse, turned in her seat 
and fixed her eyes with an expression of kindly appeal 
full on la Valliere’s face. 

The Stabat Mater had ceased, and there was a mo- 
ment’s hush of delicious sound. LaYalliere rose from 
his seat, and as he rose he was conscious, wild and un- 
settled as his thoughts were, that the figure of the Abb4 
faded suddenly from his sight and disappeared behind 
the massive, carved pillar. Scarcely knowing what he 
did, la Yalliere took his place. 


44 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


“You have seen too little of Paradise, Monsieur la 
Valliere,” the Countess was saying in her softest voice 
and most courteous manner. “You must return soon, 
even at this time of year.” 

“Entrance into Paradise is hardly for us mortals, 
Madame la Comtesse,” replied la Yalliere in a soft 
voice. “ The beauty dazzles us, the fine air is too pure 
for us to breathe; we faint and die in the unaccus- 
tomed life.” 

“You are too modest,” said the Countess, with a 
gracious, winning smile. “We will not treat you so 
badly as that. What pledge of welcome shall I give 
you ?” 

“ There is only one key to Paradise, Madame,” said 
la Yalliere, still in a soft undertone. “Only one spell 
by which the gates fall open, and the happy visitant 
walks the sunny paths void of fear and at ease. That 
key is love.” 

As he spoke these words the nuns began the antiphon 
before the Magnificat, Magnum HoBreditatis Mysterium, 
and the congregation became silent once more. The 
Countess looked full in la Yalliere’s face as she sat back 
in her chair. 

Surely a great “mystery of inheritance” that Para- 
dise should open with a key of love ! For a moment a 
look of eager inquiry and hope came into her eyes, then 
a sudden, dark shade passed over her lovely face, which 
relapsed into the look of wearied sadness that was ha- 
bitual to it. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


45 


“ You are right,” she said softly ; ‘‘ there is no Para- 
dise without love.” 

“Missus est Gabriel angelus,” the nuns had sung. 
Pure and holy as was the story of that heaven-born 
messenger, it was not more pure than the thoughts that 
passed through her own heart as she listened to the al- 
luring, monotonous strain. The weight of a grievous 
disappointment was pressing her down, the weight of 
her husband’s melancholy and icy reserve, more frozen, 
as it seemed, from the occasional futile effort to cast it 
off or to conceal it — a weight the more insupportable 
because its real origin and cause was unknown to her — 
one of those “mysteries of inheritance” which defile 
the springs of life, and waste and mar our loves. 

“ There is no key to Paradise save that of love” ; they 
were strange and searching words — that its paths were 
only peaceful and happy with love— that without love 
the heart died of famine in the empty air. How true 
they were ! How well she knew them to be true ! 

They were spoken by an elegant and polished stran- 
ger, a trained actor on the stage of life, every tone and 
word and gesture nicely chosen for the attaining of his 
end, possessed of everj^ art and trick 'of tone and man- 
ner to please heart and ear. “ The only key to Paradise 
was love.” What had she done to forfeit her husband’s 
love? What should she do now that Paradise might be 
hers, really hers ; not as walking its paths as a chance 
stranger only, but as the owner and mistress of the en- 
chanting scene? What part was this pleasant friend 


46 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


destined to play in lier life ? — he that had so suddenly 
appeared in her paths accompanied with such strange 
suerffestive thoughts and emotions within herself? He 
had seemed to help her already. Should she trust to 
his friendliness for further aid? 

But there was another whose thoughts were troubled 
among the thoughtless audience and amid the wealth of 
lovely sound. De Brie had been startled out of his 
musical reverie of pious musing by la Yalliere’s strange 
assertion, and by the coincidence which followed and 
seemed to substantiate it — the singular fact that the 
Countess should at that moment turn her inviting gaze 
upon his friend. A sense of mj^stery, of the presence 
of felt but unseen influences, oppressed him with a feel- 
ing of apprehension, almost of dread. Something terri- 
ble — so it seemed to him — might happen at any time. 
Around the outskirts of the human crowd. Powers in- 
imical to human virtue, perhaps even to human life, 
seemed to hover, invisible and impalpable, ready at any 
moment to concentrate their inherent powers, the power 
of beings purely intellectual, for the working of their 
own malefic ends. What could he do to stem this 
evil? to defeat this plot against human happiness? to 
deliver those who were bound, whom Satan would 
lead captive at his will ? 

‘Holy Mother of Redemption, 

By that Ave Gabriel brought, 

By the blessing of that Ave 
Sinners kneel to Thee I” 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


47 


The concluding antiphon of the season was being sung 
by the nuns. 

The congregation streamed out on to the pave of the 
church-yard, surrounded by the lofty, gabled houses of 
the old city, to a strange light — the solemn, evening sky 
of spring, the flambeaux of the servants, and the glim- 
tner from the houses shining on the wet flags. The old 
Viscount conducted the Countess to her carriage, to 
which the girls who were her companions followed her. 
As she entered she turned to la Yalliere, who was close 
by, and said some words to him in a low voice. As 
the carriage drove ofl la Yalliere turned back into the 
church-yard to rejoin his friend. De Brie was late in 
leaving the church, having remained in prayer, and la 
Yalliere met him at the west door. 

Then, in the fltful, uncertain, flickering light, as he 
turned to accompany his friend, close to the spot the 
Countess’s coach had just left, by the side of the paved 
path-way to the gate, and beneath a quaint iron standard 
containing an oil-lamp, he saw the Abbe again, his face 
fully turned towards the young men. 

“ Claude !” he cried, passionately seizing liis friend by 
the arm ; “ there he is again — the Abbe whom you will 
not see. Yon shall see him. There, by the lamp!” 

He held de Brie by the arm, and unconsciously ex- 
erted all the force of his vivid and intense personality 
upon the consciousness of his dearest friend, with whom 
he had been brought up from childhood, the sympathy 
with whose spirit was closer than that with any of his 


48 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


own kindred. Claude, you shall see him. There, by 
the lamp !’’ 

De Brie’s attitude seemed to stiffen, as though a mo- 
tive power not his own ran through his frame. He 
turned his eyes in the direction pointed out to him, and 
in a moment the pupils dilated into a fixed and terror- 
stricken gaze. A look of horror and of intense distrust 
and repulsion deadened the color of his face into a 
ghastly white. He gasped for breath, and clutching 
wildly at la Yalliere’s arm, he sank senseless on to the 
paved foot-wa3^ 


V. 


The two girls thought that the Countess was very 
quiet as slie drove home. When they found that their 
chatter was unheeded they subsided into silence, and 
the Countess sat looking steadfastly before her, the 
words of la Yalliere still ringing in her ears. “There 
is no entrance into Paradise without love.’’ These 
words mingled with tones of the nun’s singing, with 
the clear altos and trebles which recited the sorrows of 
the Mother of God. Was all that long past story noth- 
ing but a metaphor of the hours that were present to 
her, and to all ? There were pure virgins now to whom 
the angel of God came ; could there possibly be a sec- 
ond Eve? 

She left the two girls at their home without the city 
gate, and on her arrival at the chateau, went up at once 
into the private suite of apartments, where she expected 
to find her husband. Young as she was she heard a 
voice speaking to her, that told her that a crisis in her 
life was near; that it behooved her to be careful of her 
steps; that, above all things, as she might hope to re- 
spect herself hereafter, it was incumbent upon her to 
see her husband at once, that very night. What might 
happen, she, poor child, could not tell. Anyway, she 
4 


50 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


would be there — would speak to him, would show her- 
self by his side. 

The apartments which the Count and Countess occu- 
pied consisted of four or five rooms, terminating in a 
cabinet, formed in a small projecting angle of the front, 
and containing a staircase leading into the private gar- 
den. 

As the Countess passed through the intervening 
rooms a vague sense of depression weighed upon her 
mind. On every side of her, as she passed, nothing 
met her eyes but such objects as were calculated to 
soothe and to please. The walls were wreathed with 
carving of fruit and fiowers in strong relief, framing in 
the midst of their own loveliness portraits and land- 
scapes more lovely than themselves ; and below were 
buffets and presses full of strange and beautiful and 
curious things. The old major-domo accompanied the 
Countess. 

“ Monsieur le Comte,” he said, ‘‘ was in the little 
cabinet at the end of the suite.” He believed that he 
was there, because he himself had been into the privy 
garden, to speak to one of the gardeners, and Monsieur 
was not there. 

At these words, as it seemed, a still deeper appre- 
hension and dread, more insupportable because so inex- 
plicable, troubled the Countess’s mind. 

“Have you seen Monsieur since the morning?” she 
said. 

“I attended Monsieur le Comte aprh le dejeuner^'' 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


51 


said the old servant. “ He appeared to me distrait and 
absorbed.” 

Drawing a heavy curtain that screened a door open- 
ing into the cabinet, the major-domo bowed, and left 
his mistress to proceed alone. 

She stood for a moment with clasped hands before 
her, herself the most perfect object in a world of 
beauty on every side. 

As she stood, in her bright, fanciful dress, somewhat 
disordered by her afternoon drive, with a delicate 
beauty and a refinement of outline and of feature that 
made her, as she stood, so perfect a picture in her 
beautiful house, there rose once again in her heart, 
amid the entourage of luxury and splendor and fine 
living, a genuine longing and desire, common to the 
loftiest and the humblest life — the same in the cottage 
as in the palace — a longing for love, a desire towards 
that which is, of all things, most to be desired, a life 
of pure and holy domestic love. “Missus est Gabriel 
angelus” the nuns had sung. The sweet tones, the 
mystic words, haunted her sense, and seemed to teach 
her something beyond her sense, beyond all thought 
and hope of hers, beyond all the thought and hope of 
men. 

The door of the cabinet was open, and she stopped 
for a moment before going in. The Count was seated, 
with his back to her, at a table at which apparently he 
had been writing. The room was lighted with candles, 
but the curtains of the windows were still undrawn, 


52 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


and outside a brilliant moon revealed the garden and 
the distant wooded fields in a faint vision of delicate 
forms and lines; but what the Countess saw, in a sud- 
den vision that absorbed all her faculties, was neither 
the Count, nor the room, nor the faint moonlit dis- 
tance, etched, as it were, upon the dark background of 
night, but what her intense mental sjmpath}^, her pure 
love for her husband, revealed to her as that which at 
the same moment was present to his own mental gaze. 

His form was fixed and rigid, and his gaze appeared 
concentrated upon the landscape without. 

I never see her, never see her.” It was the Count 
speaking, though the voice was scarcely his own, so 
strange and faint it seemed. “Never see her, and yet 
she must be always near me.” 

It was evident that, no more than the Countess, did 
he see the objects that were really before his eyes. 

She saw, as she stopped sudden and still upon the 
threshold of the room, plain and distinct in vision be- 
fore her eyes, a dark lake, wild and vast and dreary, 
lying, as it were, in eternal gloom ; the chill, terrible 
waters, motionless with the stillness of a settled des])air, 
black with unfathomable mysteries of the dim eons of 
existence when the world lay void and misty and slimy 
in the pangs of creation ; and over the lake, indistinct 
in mystic shadow, pine wood and forest dingle, and, still 
higher, the rocky scars and shoulders of the great hills, 
and then a belt of mist and cloud-land, and then, high 
against the azure sky, serene, impassive, not of this 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


55i 


earth, amid the solemn unapproachable dawns and the 
celestial sunsets, cold and terrible as a dream, pure and 
lovely as a saint, pallid, lofty, wonderful, the stainless 
form of a peak of snow. 

“ 1 never see her,” said the Count again ; “ never see 
her, yet she must be near.” 

The Countess sank on her 'knees beside her hus- 
band’s chair, her hands resting upon the carved arms. 
Between her and him there seemed to rise an impassa- 
ble barrier — nay, rather a positive, active presence, a 
dividing force. He seemed unconscious even that she 
was there. He did not move, nothing moved, nothing 
happened. It seemed, indeed, impossible that anything 
could ever happen any more — hence the terrible, the 
hopeless despair. 

The Countess rose slowly from the ground, stood for 
a second upon the threshold — then she left the room. 


VI. 

De Brie was carried back into the church, and from 
thence, as he did not recover consciousness, into the 
visitors’ room of the convent; but it was a long time 
before he came to himself. When he had recollected 
himself a shudder of horror passed over his frame, and 
he absolutely refused to tell what he had seen. 

“Do not ask me what I saw,” he said. 

“He has received,” said the doctor, sententiously, “ a 
tremendous moral shock, which has for a moment anni- 
hilated his rational sense. It is in such cases as these 
that we may hope to gain an insight, the only one it 
would seem that we can gain, into the relationship of 
the seen with the unseen. By witnessing such startling 
events we seem to be placed en rapport with powers and 
influences outside our every-day life. 

De Brie seemed so shattered and ill that he was re- 
moved into an adjoining room, where the doctor di- 
rected that he should be left in perfect quiet, visited 
at intervals only, by one of the nursing sisters. As he 
became more composed he requested to be allowed to 
see the Abbess, saying that he had something of the ut- 
most importance to communicate to her. 

The Abbess came into the room, and they were left 




THE COUNTESS EVE. 


5!i 


alone. She was a beautiful woman of early middle life, 
tall, and of dignified appearance. She had suffered, and 
knew how to pity the suffering. It was not the first 
time that she had seen de Brie. He had even, as we 
have seen, composed music which had been sung by the 
nuns. 

“You have something of great importance to com- 
municate to me, my son,” she said. 

“ My mother,” said de Brie, “ do not ask me what I 
saw. I cannot tell you wdiat I saw. It seemed to me 
that I saw a vision, a foul and terrible vision — as far 
as words can faintly image what I saw — ghastly with 
the horrors of the charnel-house and the grave, with 
all the foulness of corruption and wdth all the horror of 
despair, a figure, gaunt with the terrors of a skeleton, 
and the grewsome pallor of a shroud. It seemed to 
me that I saw for a moment’s span all that evil could 
work of ravin, that innocence could suffer of defilement, 
that fair fame and prospects could endure of disap- 
pointment and delusion. I cannot tell you what I saw.” 

The Abbess was seated at some distance from de 
Brie, who had risen from his couch and was seated upon 
the edge of it, his hands clasped before him, very pale, 
and troubled in mind, hardly able to control his voice. 

“My mother,” he went on after a pause, “some ter- 
rible evil is menacing my dearest friend, la Yalliere, and 
it connects itself with the Comtesse du Pic-Adarn. Some 
fatal misfortune will befall both of them unless aid can 
be found. She appears to be estranged from her hus- 


56 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


band, to whom she has been so recently married, by some 
mysterious fate or reason, some strange dividing power 
that stands between them. She is attracted towards la 
Valliere by as mysterious a force. La Valliere is good, 
amiable, true, but he is the slave of his feelings, carried 
away by the passion of the moment; a born actor, to 
whom all parts are alike. They are lost unless some 
help may be found. Were it possible to discover the 
reason of the Count’s strange absorption much would be 
gained.” 

Some deep emotion disturbed the Abbess’s mind. She 
became absolutely pale, and seemed, after a moment’s 
conflict of hesitation, to arrive at a resolve which in- 
volved self-sacrifice and some unspeakable effort and 
pain. A slight shudder passed over her figure as she 
spoke. 

“My son,” she said, “I know and confide in you. I 
know that you are pure in heart and life, a good Cath- 
olic, a true son of the Church. I will confide all to you. 
I can reveal the mystery that overshadows the Comte 
and Comtesse du Pic-Adam, and which has drawn your 
friend into its fatal meshes. It is a sad story of wom- 
an’s frailty. It will rend my heart to tell it. It is my 
duty to tell it to you, and to suffer in the telling. It is 
a penance, which is but part of a life of penance, much 
of which, I begin to fear, has been self-appointed and 
inischosen, and therefore ineffectual and even perni- 
cious. This penance is of God’s appointment. It shall 
be borne. May God in His mercy accept it, and make 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


57 


it efficient and fruitful to the salvation of His creatures 
from the snare of the Fiend. You tell me that the 
Countess is estranged from her husband ; I will tell you 
why.” 

De Brie gazed at the Abbess with astonishmeut. His 
mind, already unsettled and disturbed, was still further 
perplexed by this strange and unexpected announce- 
ment. He almost doubted his own sanity and that of 
the Abbess. He seemed to be wandering in a wild, 
unhallowed dream. 

“ Twenty years ago,” began the Abbess, “ there was 
a young girl. She lived with a great and noble lady, 
her patroness and mistress — Madame la Coratesse du 
Pic-Adam.” 

Tlie Abbess lingered over this name as though she 
loved it, and yet at the same timt? spoke it with effort 
and reluctance. She paused for a moment to gather 
strength and resolve before she went on. 

“From the top of the Jura heights, which you can 
see from the chateau of the Count, you may discern, on 
a very clear day, beyond tlie nearer snow-peaks of the 
Alps, a distant peak, clear and sharp against the sky. 
Beneath this peak this young girl lived, in the chateau 
of her mistress, in one of the valley -passes dropping 
down into Italy. The Comtes du Pic-Adam were 
French. Some ancestor, a soldier in the French armies 
of invasion, had married the daughter of a small noble 
and settled down on his estate, calling himself, as his 
father-in-law had done, by the name of the snow-peak 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


that rose above his valley, and of which strange tales of 
a supernatural spirit-world were told by the peasants. 
They believed that our father Adam, wandering from 
Paradise, with all the world before him in which to 
choose a place of rest, had climbed this inaccessible 
peak, and had held supreme council, if not with God 
Himself, at least with celestial messengers and spirits, 
as to his future course. The descendants of this French 
soldier, in later and more peaceful times, called them- 
selves French, and served the French king, both at 
home and abroad. 

“ Of all the great and noble ladies whom God has 
sent into this world to beautify His creation, to glorify 
His name, and for the relief and happiness of His suf- 
fering creatures, none ever fulfilled the object of their 
Creator more fully than did Madame la Comtesse du 
Pic-Adam. If any man had, by the snare of Satan, 
come to doubt the existence of a merciful God, or had 
suffered himself to believe or to conclude that right- 
eousness and virtue were empty names, that unselfish- 
ness and sacrifice were a foolish dream, and that human 
nature differs nothing from the nature of the beasts 
that perish, he had only to know Madame la Comtesse 
for one day, for one hour even, and he changed his 
mind. The mountain-peaks were not more pure and 
stainless than was her mind, nor so lofty nor so near to 
heaven as were her thoughts; and the chiefest minis- 
tering angel could scarcely be more touched by the sor- 
rows of humanity, more ready or more constant in help. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 69 

As she moved about her liuusehuld, or among the cot- 
tages of the poor, or upon the terraces of her hill-gar- 
dens, or in the great halls or amid the brilliant crowds 
of castles and cities, she did not seem like a being of this 
world. This girl worshipped her as a saint of God.’’ 

The Abbess paused, as though the task she had set 
herself was wellnigh beyond her power. Then she 
went on. De Brie held his breath in nervous strain. 

“ This lady had an only son, the Comte du Pic- Adam 
whom you know. He had been educated at home, un- 
der tutors, but he was afterwards sent with his gouver- 
neur to Paris and other cities. His mother was ambi- 
tious, as far as he was concerned. She was descended 
from a family of higher nobility than her husband was, 
and she wished her son to take a higher place in the 
court and in the world than his family had ever filled, 
and above all things that he should marry within la 
haute noblesse. All this the young girl knew. 

“The young Count came home. As might be ex- 
pected, he was very much changed by his foreign life. 
He seemed, however, to be thoroughly true and affec- 
tionate to his mother, and of gallant and lofty aspira- 
tions and desires. He was very handsome and perfect- 
ly bred. 

“Madame la Comtesse du Pic -Adam was of that no- 
blest of natures which never suspects evil. More than 
in any one else she believed and trusted in the young 
girl, whom she had brought up, whom she had all but 
created, upon whom she had lavished the wealth of her 


60 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


love and the dower of her great example, all that was 
in her power to bestow of enjoyment and of instruction 
in all the arts that make life happy, the hours golden, 
the possessor fortunate. The young Count saw in this 
young girl something that pleased his fancy. He spoke 
to her kindly of his journeyings. He met her at every 
turn. He used to hunt in the forests and on the craggy 
rocks where the chamois haunt; but he used to come 
back earlier than was supposed, and the young girl 
knew where to meet him, by chance, in the lower ter- 
races of the gardens, by the woods. I have no power 
to go on, but there is no need.” 

There was a short death-like pause. Then the Abbess 
spoke again. 

One terrible, one fatal night, the Countess had been 
on a visit to a neighboring town and chateau, and had 
taken the young girl with her. They returned after 
nightfall surrounded by servants with torcheSo I re- 
member the steep roads, the swaying of the gieat pine 
branches in the wind, the moaning of the coming storm. 
AVe reached the vast, rambling chateau in safety. 

“ The Count had been supping alone. He was ex- 
cited beyond his wont. The Countess was fatigued and 
went to her rooms at once. In one of the saloons of 
the chateau these two met. 

“ For one moment of wild delirium, for it was not 
pleasure, she gave up all. All the heaven of purity and 
peace and loving devotion and respect, all. the innocent 
gayety that w^as so happy because it was ignorant of 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


61 


conscious evil, all the memory of the past that was so 
lovely, all the hope of the future that was so bright, all 
that makes woman the priceless treasure of humanity, 
the beloved of Heaven ! Oh, my God ! My God !” 

The Abbess stopped. De Brie sank from off his seat 
upon his knees and buried his face in his hands. There 
followed a silence that might be felt. 

“ It was only for a moment. Tlien she tore herself 
from the Count’s embrace and tied, as with the brand 
of Cain, through corridor and chamber. She threw her- 
self upon her bed, but long before the dawn she rose, 
made her way to a familiar postern door, and went out 
into the night. 

“ The predicted storm had come, but without rain. A 
brilliant, star-strewn sky was overhead, a wild storm- 
wind swept up the valley from the sduth and rent and 
swung the great branches of the trees — the great black 
branches that hung like ghostly forms above my head. 
A terrible cry and wailing, as of souls in torment, tore 
the distracted air and the distraught brain alike. 

“ Through the terraces of the garden, over the strewn 
rack of leaf and ffower and branch, out into the wild 
forest, up' into the wooded dingles, not knowing, not 
caring whither she went, the girl hurried on, driven by 
remorse and by despair. At last she found herself on 
the borders of a great lake, a lake which she knew well. 
It lay still and unruffled beneath the great rocks and 
the forests of pines and of oaks, undisturbed by the 
storm-tossed woodlands and howling, piercing winds, its 


62 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


unfathomable depths — in which, as legends reported, 
monsters of the primeval world still lurked — black and 
desolate beneath the starry, placid sky. Then long 
streaks of light, which were not those of the stars, be- 
gan to draw themselves out beyond the mountains and 
the trees ; black clouds, flying as from a pitiless foe, 
hurried across the sky, torn and twisted into fantastic 
shapes, and tinged here and there with this strange, 
lurid light that was coming into the sky : and above — 
far above, out of all reach of human hope — cold and icy 
and pitiless in the terrible light, rose the great peak, 
white with the starlight that was passing away, tinged, 
as were the rushing storm-clouds, with the glimmer of 
the dawn. 

On the bank of the cold, relentless lake, dark with 
unknown horrors, the girl stood at last. I believe now — 
I have believed for years — that had she gone back, the 
Countess, merciful, holy, forgiving as a saint, would 
have received her as a daughter — that the Count would 
have married her; but how could she go back? How 
could she look into that loved face? How could she 
stand before ^he g^ze of those pure, those pitiful, those 
searching eyes? How could she have married him? 
How could she have endured to live with him after 
that terrible, that fatal night? 

^^She stood for a long time upon the waters’ brink. 
Some impulse, doubtless of God — for why should He 
who cares for the sparrows be supposed careless of this 
poor, distraught, maddened creature — restrained her 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


63 


from plunging into tlieir solemn depths. Suddenly a 
new thought, a flash of light— I do not think that it 
was of God — broke upon her mind, and brought with 
it something that resembled a dreary hope. She would 
leave something that would be recognized as hers upon 
the grassy bank. They would think that she had per- 
ished beneath the black, cold waters. They would for- 
get her, or, perhaps, who could tell ? when the first 
shock of disappointment and of loathing was over they 
might even pity her; and she, the Countess, she who 
was so loving and so merciful and so good, might even, 
in the pure summer dawns as she lay awake, might 
think of this poor child whom she had loved and be- 
friended and lavished such gifts upon ; and even as the 
years went on she might, who knows ? think of her with 
something of the old love again — still as she would lie 
beneath the cold, black water, harmless and impotent to 
injure or to degrade her beloved son — remembering, as 
she surely would, how the girl had loved her, how sin- 
cere was her gratitude, how true and devoted her love. 
The girl left her cloak and hat upon the bank, and went 
on through the valley down into the pass. 

“ For day&and days she wandered on, weary and half 
starved, her feet torn and bleeding by the roughness of 
the way, begging for bread at the cottage doors. Fi- 
nally she reached the plains of Savoy. At the first 
village that she reached she sought a convent of nuns, 
she neither knew nor cared of what order. There she 
threw herself upon the doorstep and lay as dead.” 


VII. 


When the Countess awoke early iu the spring morn- 
ing, after a restless and uneasy sleep, the sunshine was 
flooding the room with warmth and light. She drank 
her morning cup of coffee, and when she was dressed 
she wandered out into the private garden alone in the 
pure, delicate air, driven by a devouring restlessness, a 
desperate insurrection against fate — against the life that 
seemed to be opening before her — against this terrible 
mistake which, as it seemed to her every moment more 
clearly, she had made — against this marriage that would 
blot out all the possibilities of joy during the few short 
years given her of youth and beauty, and of the possi- 
bility to enjoy. She paced up and down the sunny ter- 
race shaded by the yew hedges like a beautiful, wild 
animal snared and imprisoned by a cruel guile. The 
warm sunshine, the fresh morning air laden with the 
scent of opening blossoms, seemed to quicken within 
her spirit a consciousness of pleasure and an instinct of 
hope; with the warm, scent-laden air there seemed to 
glide into her sense, to thrill through every nerve and 
vein, a personal and direct influence, and in- 

gratiating, which soothed her restless despair. 

‘‘ Console yourself,” a suave, bland voice seemed to 


THE COUJSTESS EVE. 


65 


whisper in her ear; “yonr friend will soon be here. 
Your pleasant, kindly friend.” 

Life seemed to open again before her with a prospect 
fair and alluring as a child’s happy dream ; a waft of 
peace and easy indulgence, dear to human frailty, whis- 
pered compassion and allowance to her senses and in 
her ear. 

******* 

When la Yalliere awoke on the same morning his 
first thought was of his friend. The next was one of 
bewilderment and perplexity at the strange effect that 
the sight, as he supposed, of the Abbd had produced 
upon his friend. What could he have seen that was so 
horrible, so terrible, as to deprive him of consciousness, 
and to produce, as the doctor had said, such a shock 
both to his body and his mind ? He went to his friend’s 
lodgings to inquire for him, but found that he had not 
returned from tire convent, where he had passed the 
night. La Yalliere went there, but failed to gain any 
information. The Abbess was fatigued and could not 
be seen. Monsieur de Brie, who appeared to be quite 
recovered, had left some time since, to go whither the 
portress did not know. La Yalliere returned to his 
lodgings more perplexed and bewildered than when he 
had left them. 

In the excited state of his feelings he naturally re- 
membered the invitation of the Countess, with a desire 
to see again her beautiful f^ce, to listen to her soft ac- 
cents of kindly courtesy. 

5 


66 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


The distance between the city and the chateau was 
so short that la Yalliere went there on foot. 

The spring rain had laid every particle of dust, the 
morning was delicately fine, the birds sang in the parks 
and gardens that lay beside the road that stretched from 
the city gate in a straight line into the country. At 
first level, but beginning to undulate as it approached 
the hills, the road was planted on either side with rows 
of trees, 

Before the young man had reached the confines of 
the Count’s park he was conscious of a presence near 
him, and in another second the Abbd appeared to him, 
walking by his side, with an appearance of pleasant con- 
verse. There was now no necessity for effort, on la 
Yalliere’s part, before he could see or hear him ; on 
the contrary, the intercourse seemed familiar and easy. 
Nevertheless, or perhaps even in consequence of such 
familiarity, la Yalliere shrank from his companion with 
increased dislike. 

SceleratP^ he said, excitedly ; “why do you dog my 
steps? What infernal spell did you cast last night 
upon my friend ? What did you do to him ?” 

And he laid his hand upon his sword. 

“ Gently, my son ! gently !” said the other, always 
with his suave, masked air and voice. “ You forget 
what I am. I did nothing to your friend. What he 
saw, he saw from no wish of mine, but by his own ex- 
cited, fanatic imagination. Do not let us speak of him 
or of any such fantastic fools ; other matters press upon 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


67 


our attention. Do not slight the opportunity, the mo- 
ment that lies before you. Be bold. You will find the 
Countess in the private garden. Do not fear to be in- 
terrupted by the Count. I have taken care of him.” 

“Wretch!” cried la Yalliere; “who! what are you! 
that you should ?” — 

He spoke to the void air. With a faint, mocking 
smile the figure before him was gone. 

In the avenue that led up to the chateau and in the 
straight walks of the open garden that lay on either 
side, with statues and long narrow canals of water upon 
which swans were fioating, several people were walking, 
most of them, as la Yalliere ^ notables and persons 
of distinction in the city. They had come out to at- 
tend the levee of the Count, but he had not yet left his 
room, and the answers of the servants were vague and 
evasive. Several of these persons were known to la 
Yalliere, and spoke to him ; among them was the little 
Yiscount. 

“ Ah, Monsieur la Yalliere,” he said, as he came run- 
ning up, his thin, elderly face wreathed with smiles, “ I 
see that you have followed my advice. You are a fort- 
unate man. With that shape, that inimitable tournure^ 
what may you not hope for ?” 

And he gazed with unfeigned admiration and envy 
at the handsome young actor. 

“ Have you seen Monsieur le Maire Carre ?” he went 
on — “ I beg his pardon. Monsieur Carr^ de Bois-Faucon 
—and congratulated him on his nobility ?” 


THE COUNTESS EVE, 


“Is he noble said la Yalliere, indifferently. 

“ Oh, surely. He has purchased the office of Grey- 
hounds of the King’s Chamber, which gives nobility. 
His family dates their nobility since exactly nine days. 
It is perfectly correct. I have seen the receipt.” 

La Yalliere wished to shake him off, but the little 
Yiscount stuck to him. 

“ He will not, however, be able to join in the assem- 
bly of the confraternity of nobles which will take place 
in a few days,” he said. “Hone can do that who can- 
not prove four quarterings. Your friend de Brie 
might. He is noble of far more than that. The de 
Bries of Bois-Garou in Poitou, you know — wood- wolves 
they were, doubtless, in the old lawless days.” 

La Yalliere managed to escape from him after this, 
some other more important or responsive person at- 
tracting his attention. La Yalliere spoke to the freshly 
ennobled mayor, and to one or two other of the nota- 
bles. There was a rumor current among them that the 
Count had left the chateau on some sudden and mys- 
terious business. 

At last the ancient major-domo appeared, and con- 
firmed this report. “ The Count,” he said, “ had been 
suddenly called away to his lands at the Pic-Adam. 
Would les messieurs partake of dejeuner before return- 
ing to the city ?” 

“Les messieurs” would partake of dejeuner, and were 
marshalled into a dining-room on the ground-floor of 
the chateau, facing the avenue and the public walks. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


La Valliere seized the opportunity and spoke to one of 
the pages. He in turn fetched a maid-servant, who, 
inspired by a bribe, spoke to the head woman of the 
Countess, who condescended to take his name to her 
mistress. In a few moments an answer was returned. 

“Madame la Comtesse would see Monsieur in the 
privy garden.” 

The chateau was built in the taste of the latter part 
of the reign of Louis Quatorze, with sash doors and 
windows at intervals in the fa 5 ade, towards the private 
garden, opening on to a terrace walk. The windows 
and doors were ornamented with carved stone-work, 
profusely enriched with wreaths of flowers and gro- 
tesque masks and grinning satyr faces. 

As, following the page, la Yalliere passed through 
several rooms, the air seemed laden with an enervating 
perfume and sultriness, as of a past luxury that lingered 
in its ancient haunts ; outside, he had left a mocking 
frivolousness, perhaps, but a sense of fresh life and 
action — here, in these scented, delicately pencilled, but 
to some extent faded rooms, he seemed to pass into an- 
other world, into an enchanted palace, a Sans Souci 
which extended before him wide as limitless desire. 

“I have read,” he thought, “somewhere that ‘we are 
seekers after something in the world, which is there in 
no satisfying measure or not at all.’ It is not true. 
The possibilities of existence are inflnite. Everything 
is possible to him who seeks 1” 

He passed out on to the long terrace opposite to a 


70 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


flight of steps. Beneath was a small lawn, screened by 
high yew hedges, and by tall beech-trees, cut into regular 
and massive walls of interlaced boughs. In the centre 
of the green, thus enclosed from view even from the 
windows of the chateau, were two fountains, springing 
from stone sculpture representing boys holding dolphins, 
and between the fountains a solitary tall Arbor Yitse 
reared its green spire against the blue, spring sky. Be- 
side the Tree of Life, the flickering sunlight through the 
fountain spray falling upon her, stood the Countess Eve. 

She was dressed in a white morning robe of flowered 
silk, which clothed the faultless outline of her figure 
without concealing it by any monstrosities of fashion, 
and a wdiite hat ]yith an egret’s plume looped with 
pearls. She smiled on la Yalliere as he approached. 

The sudden change from the heavy, scent-laden air 
of the luxurious rooms to the fresh, brilliant sunlight, 
the grotesque outlines and ornaments of the chambers, 
the chateau itself, with its architecture of carved faces 
amid wreaths of flowers, creeping serpents twined with 
roses and with jessamine, were, as it seemed, so many 
impresses and signatures of love. He forgot the in- 
junction, “ Let no man be hasty to taste of the fruit of 
Paradise before his time.” Whispering spirits, speaking 
to his soul, gave him courage and strength. A mystic 
veil of soft light, shining across his spirit, like the sun- 
lit spray of the fountains across the Countess’s figure, 
seemed to transform this lovely scene into the life of 
Fairy-land. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


71 




“ I feared to venture into Paradise when at a distance, 
Madame la Corntesse,’’ he said. “ Now that I have been 
so bold, I wonder still more at my temerity. The bright 
reality, as I feared, appalls and dazzles me.’’ 

She looked at him simply and steadily out of her vio- 
let e^^es. 

“ I asked you to come,” she said. 

“ There is no entrance into Paradise without love,” 
thought la Yalliere, but he did not utter the words. 

“ I was thinking of you this morning, Monsieur la 
Yalliere,” the Countess went on, still speaking with per- 
fect ease and simplicity, “ and of what you said the other 
night concerning the actor’s life. I was wondering 
whether to you that which men call real was not alto- 
gether unimportant and frivolous, and whether the real 
to you was only the emotions and desires of the moment, 
and the characters and thoughts of those with whom you 
acted for a while; and I thought what a wonderful life 
this must be.” 

She stopped and looked inquiringly at la Yalliere, 
who thought he saw clearly what was passing through 
her mind. 

“A wonderful life, indeed,” he thought, “she has 
glimpses of. Not the cruel, every-day round of dull 
and commonplace reality, but the boundless choice of 
circumstance and emotion! What shall I tell her of 
such a life ?” 

It may seem an improbable thing, but, though this 
was la Yalliere’s first and eager thought, he was not 

/ 


72 


THE COUNTS 88 EVE. 


able at once to express it. At this most inopportune 
moment the recollection of his friend de Brie, of what 
his theory of life was and would have been, forced it- 
self upon his consciousness with an insistence that would 
not be gainsaid. It was as though de Brie stood by 
his side — nay, forced himself between the Countess and 
his friend. 

It may have been that his actor’s life predisposed 
him to take at once the part of varied and opposing 
action, or it may have been that the influence of de 
Brie over his friend was so powerful that in absence 
even his spirit was by la Yalliere’s side. 

However this may be, it is a fact that instead of the 
thought that was in his mind, or the purpose that had 
brought him thither, he spoke quite opposite words. 

“My friend de Brie, Madame,” he said, “ w^ould scold 
us both for entertaining such thoughts. He would 
preach us an edifying sermon on the necessity and cer- 
tainty of facts, and of the duty of abiding by them, of 
neglecting the siren calls of the feelings and of the 
passions. I can see his attitude. I can hear his elo- 
quent — ” 

La Yalliere stopped in the midst of the persiflage 
which his dual nature had at once awakened within 
him. The recollection of his friend’s terror the night 
before, of his sudden faint and fall, arrested him. He 
faltered in his speech and turned pale ; then he stopped. 

There was an embarrassed pause. The Countess 
seemed mystified and annoyed. The gracious smile 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


73 


left her lips, aud the light seemed suddenly to fade 
from garden, alley, and lawn. 

La Yalliere bit his lip in vexation at what seemed to 
him his inexplicable stupidity. A dark shadow lay 
upon the path before him, which a moment before had 
seemed so bright, and, as out of a sudden thunder- 
cloud, the flash of a wielded sword intervened between 
himself and the Tree of Life. 

But the shadow passed from the lovely face in an- 
other moment; la Yalliere must have impressed the 
Countess’s fancy to an uncommon degree. 

“Your friend de Brie is no doubt a most excellent 
person,” she said, archly, “ but I did not invite him 
here this morning. I do not know why he should in- 
trude between us thus.” 

They wandered on, after this, round the grassy verge 
of the fountains towards a flight of three broad steps, 
which led between the yew hedges to a long, broad 
terrace or alley, on a slightly lower level, extending the 
entire length of the garden. It was laid out in flower- 
beds of fantastic shapes upon the gravel paths. It was 
skirted on the upper or northern side by the high beech 
hedges, but on the southern side it was open to a wide 
lawn or orchard planted with fruit"trees, and bounded 
on the lower side by the high ivy-grown wall that di- 
vided the private garden from the park, the lofty trees 
of which were seen towering above it. 

The cherry and pear trees were bursting into blos- 
som, the apple-trees swelling into bud, the lofty trees 


74 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


in the park beyond showing the first faint green of the 
opening leaf, the bright spring sky stretched overhead. 
The Countess stood silently, looking over the white 
blossoms of the fruit-trees towards the lofty branches 
of the park, through which might be seen here and 
there the white, rocky cliffs of the hills, and even, still 
more remotely, the faintest outline of the distant snow- 
peaks. A strange feeling of confident boldness and 
strength came into la Valliere’s heart. 

Never before had it seemed so clear to him, standing 
in that bright spring morning b}^ the side of this lovely 
woman, that life — real life — did not consist in the mere 
accidents of existence, in the limitations with which fact 
and circumstance had cumbered the path of a man’s 
life, but in the limitless possibilities which his imagi- 
nation and his genius opened to him on every side. 
“Only,” as the whispering, sardonic voice had said, 
“ only be bold.” 

He was standing by the Countess’s side, a step back- 
ward behind her, by the border of the grassy orchard. 

“You are right,” he said, “and de Brie is wrong. 
To love and to enjoy is the whole duty of man. The 
life which you have glimpses of is the only true exist- 
ence — to rise above the confining limits of fact and cir- 
cumstance — to dwell in the light and freedom of an un- 
trammelled intellect, like to like, contrast to contrast, 
opposite to opposite. In this way life is raised to brill- 
iancy and interest, as with a sparkling draught of sun- 
lit elixir, that gives to all, even to the humblest, the 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


76 


heritage of the gods, and casts out all fear. ‘ Ye shall 
not surely die.’ ” 

Did he speak these last words himself, or were they 
uttered by some unseen presence near him amid the 
garden walks? Some such fancy seemed to strike la 
Yalliere, for he turned his head suddenly, but there was 
no one there. 

The Countess did not seem to hear him. She kept 
her place, facing the white blossoms and the delicate 
sky. The flush of spring was in her face and in her 
eyes ; but she did not speak. 

There seemed, indeed, at this moment to fall upon 
the Countess and la Yalliere one of those palls of si- 
lence that suddenly and without apparent cause embar- 
rass us at times. We do not know the reason, we think 
of it only as an annoying stupidity, we blame ourselves. 
It is possible that we are wrong. It is possible that 
these sudden lets and hinderances are monitions of a 
higUejr life. 

In the effluence of the Countess’s look, in the sereni- 
ty and composure of her pose and gesture, there seemed 
some power to depress la Yalliere’s exultant spirits. 
He followed her a step or two behind, in silence. 

Then, as they went on along the terrace towards the 
east, among the quaint borders edged with bo.x, and 
turned down a path that skirted the lower lawn, and 
followed the high wall of the garden, la Yalliere be- 
came conscious of the presence of another power; the 
air seemed to him full of something that could only be 


76 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


described as Effort, as supreme exertion of will towards 
a definite and determined end. He felt a strange cer- 
tainty that the Abb^ was by his side, and that the slight- 
est exertion of his own will would cause him to be visi- 
ble at the instant ; but the presence and personality of 
the Countess absorbed his faculties and rendered such 
exertion impossible. The two wandered on in silence, 
hardly knowing what they did. 

At the east corner, farthest from the chateau and 
from the city, the ground beyond the wall sloped sud- 
denly into a small dingle, and this little valley was 
planted thickly with great trees that came close up to 
the wall, and even to the chateau itself. Hear the cor- 
ner, of the wall, almost hidden by the heavy masses of 
untrained ivy, was a small postern door. Was it by 
chance or by some mysterious direction that, as la Yal- 
liere approached this door, he noticed it? 

‘‘That door,” he said, “leads, I suppose, into the 
wood ?” 

“ I suppose it does,” said the Countess, indifferently. 
“ It is never used. I believe it was made for the con- 
venience of the Counts, that they might return to the 
privy garden and to the chateau unobserved. Would 
you like to have a key .^” 

Did she say these words herself ? or were they 
spoken for her by some malefic power that was lurking 
near? She seemed to have some such thought as this, 
for she started as she said the words and looked round — 
furtively, if such a word might possibly be applied to lier. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


77 


They walked round the grassy orchard and returned 
to the chateau, where the dejeuner of the Countess 
awaited them. When, at mid-day, la Yalliere left to re- 
turn to the city, he took the key of the postern with 
him. 


Claude de Brie awoke on the morning of this event- 
ful day apparently restored to perfect health. He went 
to mass at the parish church adjoining the convent, and 
after mass he had an interview with the Abbess, as the 
result of wliich he journeyed out to the chateau for the 
purpose of seeing the Count. In this he was unsuccess- 
ful; but being known to the domestics at the chateau, 
he obtained earlier news of the Count’s sudden depart- 
ure than was vouchsafed to the notables of the city. 
With this news he returned to the Abbess, who mani- 
fested great perturbation on hearing it. 

“ He is driven by the devil into the wilderness,” she 
said; ‘‘and in his despair there will be none to help 
him. Satan sliall stand at his right hand. ‘Et diabo- 
lus stet a dextris ejus.’ ” 

The rule of the Abbess was not strict ; she allowed 
the nuns to visit as they wished in the city and neigh- 
borhood, but she herself never visited any on mere terms 
of civility or the customs of society. She spent her 
time, when not engaged in the management of her 
household, in visiting the poor in the city, or in such 
villages or farm-houses as she was by any means ac- 
quainted with. In this way it was not strange to her 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


79 


to take a sudden jonrney on emergency. As she spoke 
to de Brie, even, such a message was brought to her 
from a neighboring village. 

“Ah,” she said, “poor child ! she is very lovely ; she 
is the daughter of Monsieur de Gesril. They are noble 
and live on their own lands, but are very poor, and the 
only sign of nobility is the colonibier at the farm ; but 
I cannot think of her now. I must go to him ; I have 
delayed too long.” 

“ I am at your service in all things, my mother,” said 
de Brie ; “ only command me.” 

“There are some people — good people in their way,” 
said the Abbess, “who have an utterly unsubdued nat- 
ure, which they call God. May He grant that I have 
not been such a one ! I have dreaded the pain of re- 
vealing myself to him. I have taken my own course 
and made my own fate. May God in His infinite pity 
have mercy upon me !” 

“ That,” said de Brie, below his breath, “ is the very 
prayer I heard the Count utter, as he thought of the 
moment when he might see you.” 

“Our lives are interwoven in such mysterious sort,” 
said the Abbess, “that we cannot always distinguish 
what the will of God is. I have heard of your mother’s 
story. She was a child at a convent school. In this 
convent the Jansenist heresy obtained considerable 
sway. One of the nuns, who had great influence with 
this child, refused, among others, to submit to the rul- 
ing of the visiting Superior, and finally, with several 


80 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


more, broke her vow and left the convent. Your moth- 
er, who was completely under her influence, was about to 
follow her, when at this juncture your father appeared, 
married her, and carried her ofl. All this you know as 
well as I ; but now, listen. This old nun, the other day, 
ninety years of age, being ill at ease, and for long desir- 
ous to return to her vocation, came back to us ! Who 
can say where the hand of God is ? I, like this old nun, 
chose my own path, hence this terrible growth of sin. 
Wherever there is sin committed, then sin is born into 
the world — is born, but does not die. Where it wanders 
to, what work of evil is done by it, none can tell. Driv- 
en to despair by remorse, Satan standing at his right 
hand, what may he not do — he who was so gentle and 
so sweet-natured ? Will you go with me to his aid, Mon- 
sieur de Brie 

mheP said de Brie, “it seems to me that God 
is more gracious to us than we think. My mother, who, 
as you say, left her convent partly through heresy and 
partly through love, was discarded by all her relations, 
by all her husband’s relations and friends. She seemed 
discarded by God Himself. Her husband became a 
common player and musician. But she had contracted, 
in her convent, in spite of heresy and in spite of love, a 
deep feeling of religion and of absolute resignation to 
the will of God, which sustained her in life and sup- 
ported her in death. She died happy. I, who am her 
son, owe everything that I have of happiness to her. I 
will go with you where you will.” 


THE C0UNTES8 EVE. 


81 


The Abbess looked at de Brie for some moments in 
silence. There could be no doubt that he was a happy 
man. His disposition was singularly sweet and placid, 
and he escaped, by an instinctive recoil, everything that 
was coarse, cruel, or unpleasant. His religion consisted 
in following the good and the beautiful, and he avoided 
intuitively the disquieting and difficult aspects both of 
life and thought. The existence of beauty was to him 
a safeguard and an asylum from all the attacks of Satan 
and of doubt. It led him to a Father in Heaven. To 
him the long range of white summits were indeed the 
heavenly Beulah. Every lovely chord, or sunset, or 
mountain rill, or rocky valley, assured him of a higher 
life; and safe in this fairy -land, he could defy the distract- 
ing sights of evil or the insinuating whispers of doubt. 

The impatience of the Abbess admitted of no delay. 
At her urgent request de Brie obtained a chaise deposte, 
and they left the city that same afternoon, only a few 
minutes, indeed, after la Yalliere had returned on foot 
from the chateau. The Abbess was accompanied by an 
elderly nun, in whom she placed confidence, and who 
was much attached to her. De Brie and a servant fol- 
lowed the chaise on horseback. 

They traversed the undulating plains, rich with woods 
and vineyards, that lay between the city and the hills. 
They slept at a little town at the foot of the mountains, 
in a romantic valley with a mountain torrent and lake, 
and mill-wheels that made a gentle, soothing murmur, 
and early in the morning dragged their way slowly up 
6 


82 


THE C0UNTE88 EVE. 


the long, steep road, beneath the lofty white rocks and 
the pine forests of the Jura range. 

Snow still covered the tops of the hills, which were 
partially concealed by wreaths of delicate white vapor, 
drawn out and contorted into fantastic and fleeting 
shapes, through which the sharp outlines and weird 
forms of the pine forests were indistinctly traced. Ev- 
ery few moments a rift in the seething mist revealed 
a delicate blue sky, and sudden bursts of sunshine light- 
ed the fresh green of the sycamore and chestnut and 
beech woods. A sudden light, climbing the steep hill- 
sides, revealed, now and again, the verdant pastures, 
and the delicate shimmer of spring flowers on the grassy 
slopes and in the fissures of the rocks. 

Near the summit of the hills they reached a church- 
yard, when, alighting and looking back, they saw the 
mountain lake and the winding valleys which they had 
passed. Then through a gorge of pine-clad hills they 
reached Saint Cergne, and then, immediately afterwards, 
without a moment’s warning, the road reaches the verge 
of the precipice, and the wall of the Jura opens right 
and left, and the finest view in the world bursts upon 
the traveller’s gaze. 

The writings of Rousseau had made the love of the 
picturesque in mountain scenery fashionable, but both 
the Abbess and de Brie would have paused before such 
a sight had Rousseau lived or not. The Abbess alighted 
from the chaise de jposte^ and de Brie dismounted and 
stood by her side. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


At the distance of some eight miles, embossed upon 
a plain of verdure, of woodland, and of vineyard, there 
lay, or rather hovered before the sight, so delicate and 
shaded and ideal was the vision, the apparition, as it 
might seem, of a celestial lake. Of a color deeper than 
that of the most fathomless sky, its margin indistinct 
with snow-white reflection, like the hovering of shadowy 
wings, it seemed, from where they stood, to rise above 
the earth as a path -way and pavement of that city 
whose foundations are sapphire; and above this mar- 
vellous and glorious sight there rose another more glo- 
rious and wonderful still, for above the pavement of 
this mystic sea rose into the sky, pure in a white- 
ness hitherto unconceived, distinct against the delicate 
morning light, piled in stupendous fashion, etched in 
lines of marvellous witchery and glamour, in pointed 
peak and giant strength, the stainless region of the 
snow. 

******** 

The Abbess and de Brie stood some minutes in si- 
lence ; but the heart of the Abbess was too full of one 
absorbing subject to permit of its being long distracted 
towards any other. She pointed out to de Brie, in the 
far distance towards the south, a peak of snow stand- 
ing somewhat apart, white and phantom -like in the 
air. 

“That is the Pic-Adam,” she said. “We must skirt 
the mountains by Chambdry. The passes before us are 
closed at this time of the year, but by Chambdry we 


84 


TRE COUJS'TESS EVE. 


can reach the Pic by a lower pass. It will be a long 
journey. Pray God we do not come too late !” 

* * * * * * * 

On the evening of the third day the chaise de poste^ 
toiling slowly up the pass from Chambery, reached the 
Chateau du Pic- Adam. It stood, with its dark massive 
masonry and projecting Gothic towers and upper win- 
dows, its pinnacles and lofty sloping roofs, surrounded 
by thick groves of oak and chestnut on the hill-sides; 
and above it, high above the neighboring pine woods, 
rose the narrow snow-peak, the western sun shining full 
upon it. Over the chateau and below the peak, partly 
upon a low rain-cloud and partly upon the dark pine 
wood, a rainbow crossed the mountain slope. 

“ That is a good omen,” said de Brie, riding up close 
to the door of the chaise. “ We shall not be too late.” 

The tired horses dragged the chaise slowly up on to 
the broad terrace of the chateau, which was planted 
along the edge with a straight row of sycamore trees. 
From the farther end de Brie could see the peak, from 
which all trace of sunset had faded, and below it, at 
some distance from the terrace, the fatal lake. The 
rainbow was gone. 

The solemn bell of the chateau sounded long and 
drearily in the deepening gloom before there was any 
response. 

At last an old servant, accompanied by a youth in an 
old and worn livery, appeared, and jealously inspected 
the visitors through the partly open door. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


85 


The appearance and manner of de Brie succeeded in 
partly reassuring the old man, and he ventured forth as 
far as the chaise door, where the Abbess spoke to him 
for a few minutes in a low voice. 

La Mere Ahhesse^^ he said, “might certainly enter ^ 
with her attendants.” He seemed dazed and con- 
founded. 

The last faint glow of evening light shone upon the 
great hall as they entered. It was an immense apart- 
ment, longer than it was broad, with a comparatively 
low ceiling, crossed by gigantic beams of oak, and run- 
ning through the entire depth of the house. On the 
right hand was an enormous, carved, stone fireplace, of 
greater length than height, and opposite to it a collec- 
tion of armor of all ages and descriptions, both arranged 
upon the wall and standing in front of it in entire suits. 

At the back of the hall were two flights of steps and a 
low square window full of dark-stained glass, with ar- ' 
morial bearings in the small panes. 

Monsieur le Comte had been there, said the old serv- 
ant, since three days. He believed that he was then 
in his room, but he would inquire of his servant. 

The young footman produced two candles in lofty 
candlesticks and lighted the Abbess and de Brie up the 
wide straggling stairs. The wind moaned dismally 
through the doors and windows and down the panelled 
walls, and caused the candles to flicker and burn dimly. 

De Brie’s spirits sank amid the gloom. 

“ This house,” said the Abbess, “ seems to you, I do 


86 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


not doubt, silent, empty, and deserted, but it is far other- 
wise with me. To me it seems full of restless footsteps. 
I see these rooms and stairs full of servants and de- 
pendents, and of guests. I hear the talk and jests and 
laughter; I hear Madame’s voice. The air is full of 
voices and of echoing footsteps. Those who have lived 
and worked, and thronged the chambers of old houses 
— where are they ? Where are the absent and the dead ? 
Surely they are not far from us in such a house as this 
isT 

She walked straight on as if through her own house. 
The staircase led to a long gallery which stretched away 
on either hand far beyond the distance to which the 
faint light of the two candles extended. It appeared 
to be lined, as was the staircase, with dim and faded 
portraits, and here and there with cabinets and embroi- 
dered chairs, all equally ancient and out of fashion. 

The Abbess crossed the gallery, opened a door, and 
entered a great saloon apparently over the hall, and the 
young servant followed her submissively. 

The salle was furnished much in the same fashion as 
the rest of the house. If there had ever been in it any- 
thing modern or elegant, it had long since been re- 
moved. Everything wore that look of oneness, that 
sameness of tint, that attaches itself to furniture which 
has been long in the same place. 

The Abbess crossed the salle and opened a door on 
the further side. By this door, where a picture had 
formerly hung, there was a blank space. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


SI 


“She used to be there,” said the Abbess. “The 
Count has the picture at the chateau.” 

They went through several smaller rooms, all fur- 
nished in the same way, all bearing the Same marks of 
desertion and emptiness. Finally they reached a door, 
which seemed to end the suite. Here the Abbess paused 
for a moment with her hand upon the lock. Then she 
opened the door and went in. 

Tlie room had a more modern appearance than any 
that they had yet seen. It was a bedroom of consider- 
able size, furnished in the taste of the Louis Quatorze 
period of thirty years before. The embroidered bed- 
hangings, the marquetry wardrobes, the garniture de 
toilette and little tables, were undisturbed — left exactly 
as their mistress had left them years ago. The room 
was carefully kept, and some repairs had been made 
where the hangings and covers had become worn and 
rotten with age. 

“ This was Madarne’s room,” the Abbess said ; but 
de Brie had known it already. 

In this room, as in every room of the house, was the 
sense of unseen presences of the absent and of the 
dead, of a people and of owners who had passed away, 
and to whom everything still belonged. It seemed 
kicredible that any should dare to alter or to touch. 
All such meddling would seem intrusion and wrong- 
wrong to the past and to the dead. 

The Abbess crossed the room and stood before a 
large wardrobe of rich marquetry, the upper part open- 


88 


TRE COUNTESS EVE. 


ing with doors, the lower consisting of drawers. One 
of these — the upper one — the Abbess opened. 

“Here,” she said, as she drew it out, “she kept her 
own jewels, her most cherished — ” with a sharp crj she 
sank upon her knees, and covering her face with her 
hands, burst into a passion of tears. 

In the drawer, carefully folded and preserved as 
with the hand of love, strewn with the withered rem- 
nants of what had once been sweet-smelling flowers and 
herbs, with here and there a girl’s ornament and jewel, 
were the dresses of a young girl of the passed fashion 
of perhaps some twenty years. 

******* 

In a few moments the steps of the old major-domo 
were heard. The Abbess rose from her knees and re- 
covered her self-possession. 

“Monsieur le Comte’s servant informed him,” the 
old man said, “that his master had retired to his room, 
and had dismissed him with orders that he was not to 
be disturbed until a certain hour in the morning. He 
dared not disobey his orders. If la Mire Ahhesse and 
monsieur would partake of some supper, such refresh- 
ment as the house afforded was at their service. In 
the morning the Count’s' will could be ascertained.” 
There was no alternative but to submit to the delay. 
******* 

A lovely morning, foretold by the rainbow which 
had attracted de Erie’s regard the evening before, 
dawned upon the chateau, the valley, and the peak. 


THE COUNTESS EYE. 


89 


Before his servants were awake, the Count rose and 
wandered out through the terraced garden and the 
fresh green woods towards the margin of the lake, 
whose dark waters had so terrible an attraction to him. 
Twenty years ago, on a wild tumultuous morning, he 
had stood almost on the same spot, his mind distracted 
with remorse and despair. Since then there had been 
seasons, long seasons, when the terror and the despair, 
and even the past itself had been almost, if not quitej 
forgotten ; but beneath all the associations and the pre- 
occupations, the distinctions and the successes of his 
life, had lurked a germ of conscious memory and of 
remorse. Whether aroused by return to scenes of his 
boyhood, Qr by the presence of his lovely wife, the re- 
membrance of this other girl--none less lovely— the 
companion of his boyhood, the love and fancy of his 
youth, dogged his steps from dry to day. Fanned, as 
it would seem, for their own malefic purpose, by the 
spirits that track the footsteps of the sinner, the re- 
membrance became to him in itself a sin. By a terri- 
ble action and reaction, committed sin had become not 
only exceeding sinful, but a diabolic witch-circle with- 
out exit and without end. 

Yet, though he stood on that lovely morning by the 
grass/ margin of the lake, himself as remorseful and 
despairing as when he had stood there twenty years 
before, how changed otherwise was the scene ! Then, 
on the stormy autumn morning, the great sear and 
withered leaves, swept and driven through the air and 


90 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


along the earth, hurled and contorted into fantastic 
shapes and measures like the witch-dances of a Wal- 
purgis night ; then.^ the gigantic branches of the forest 
trees, torn and riven and hurled and strewn upon path- 
way and rock and greensward ; then.^ the roar and wail 
as of the storm-fiend through mountain pass and pine 
wood ; the7i, the storm-clouds hunted and driven across 
the affrighted sky. Now^ along the margin of the 
lake, upon the green, fresh-springing turf, hyacinth and 
crocus and anemone, countless in number, spread out a 
carpet fit for the dancing of the summer hours; now^ 
the laughing waters of the lake, just stirred by the 
morning breeze, fiashed with opal tints of blue and 
gold beneath the newly risen sun, and above, over the 
gay, rustling wood, loud with the singing of birds, the 
Pic -Adam, cold, clear, steadfast, in the sky. 

The Count was standing, his hands crossed behind 
his back, his head bent forward upon his chest, as 
nearly as he or any man might be able to judge, pre- 
cisely on the spot where, twenty sad years before, a 
girl’s hat and scarf had been found soiled and torn 
upon the rotted turf. 

A slight noise caused the Count to turn suddenly 
and sharply round, and he saw de Brie, whom he re- 
membered with indistinctness. He instinctively laid 
his hand upon his sword. De Brie was standing hesi- 
tatingly upon the flowery grass. He was very pale, 
and his manner was embarrassed and almost timid. 
The Count looked at him with wonder and even alarm. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


dl 

“Pardon me, Monsieur le Comte du Pic -Adam,” 
said the young man at last, “that I intrude upon your 
seclusion. I have a message, I may say, from the grave.” 

He spoke slowly, as if to gain time. He was indeed 
overpowered by a sense of nervousness, and scarcely 
knew what he said. Even with his knowledge of the 
past — of what the past day, the past hour had brought 
— a strange sense of mystery and uncertainty haunted 
him. What was about to happen he could not tell. 
Hothing that might happen would seem strange. 

The Count looked at him very steadily, but he did 
not take his hand from his sword. 

“Monsieur le Comte,” de Brie went on, still speaking 
very slowly, “ we are not alone. We are never alone; we 
are surrounded by the living and the dead, here with us 
one moment and then gone forever ; and not only by such 
but by those others who never die. Do you believe this ?” 

The supreme distinction of face and gesture, the tone 
of his voice, were so perfectly noble and innocent of evil, 
that all trace of suspicion and doubt vanished from the 
Count’s look. He took his hand from his sword. 

“I believe it,” he said; “no one has reason to know 
it better than I.” 

“ ‘ She must be ever near me, ever near me, and yet I 
never see her,’” de Brie went on. “ Monsieur le Comte, 
do you remember using these w'ords?” 

“When I see her!” exclaimed the Count; “when I 
see her!” In his eyes the dazzling lake, the waving 
woodland, the greensward covered with flowers, seemed 


93 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


only a fitting stage for this distinguished mysterious 
stranger, who spoke such penetrating words. He felt 
almost like those priests of old, whp saw, in the minis- 
trations of their course, angels by the altar of the Lord. 
“ When I see her ! May God in His infinite pity have 
mercy on me when I do !’’ 

As he said these words, de Brie saw a strange light 
come into his eyes, as he stood with his back to the lake, 
facing de Brie and the chateau, whence the young man 
had come. De Brie turned suddenly, and the Count’s 
surprise was, perhaps, hardly greater than his own. 

Within the shadow of the wood, where the grassy 
verge began to drop towards the lake, stood a figure 
more like an angel of God than falls to the lot of most 
men, in their course through life, ever to see. 

The white lining of the Abbess’s dress w^as thrown 
back, and hung like folded wings on either side of her 
slight, noble figure, clothed in what seemed the rich 
dress of a young girl of a past age ; on her breast an 
antique gem flashed in the morning light. “Her closely 
cut hair, released from all covering, seemed to surround 
her head with a halo of glory, shot through by the sun. 
De Brie gazed upon her with wonder and with awe. 
The Count sank upon his knees. 

“Auguste,” she said, and the lingering air seemed to 
caress and to prolong the sound; “Auguste, I am here. 
I have never seen you since that night, but I am here. 
God in His unspeakable pity has had mercy upon us, 
and has utterly abolished the whole lody of Sin.” 


IX. 


The key which the Countess Eve had given to la 
Valliere made the entrance into Paradise very easy 
to him. He came day after day, at the same hour in 
the morning, to the postern door in the wood. He 
hired a horse, upon which he made a circuit of a few 
miles every morning, and leaving his horse at a farm 
and game-keeper’s house in the little valley, he made 
his way to the private door through the wooded paths. 
Every day the spring sunshine seemed brighter, and 
every day the sky above him seemed more blue. Ev- 
ery day the budding leaves grew greener, and the fruit 
blossom more white and dazzling against the blue sky. 
The rich moulding of masks and flowers and fruit that 
shone out amid the trellised trees in the renaissance- 
work of the chateau seemed to glow with welcome in 
the warmth of their mellow, moss-tinted coloring, and 
morning after morning, beneath the fountains and the 
Tree of Life, without fail to receive him, stood the 
Countess Eve. 

“ It is good of you to come,” she said ; “ you are the 
truest of friends, for you are never late.” 

Do you wish me to tell you what they said ? Do you 
ask me what the rushing brooklet is saying when the 


94 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


tiny waves ripple and sparkle in the light? Do you 
think that I can crystallize the warmth and the glow 
and the sunlight, the flush of youth and the fresh 
breeze of life and of the spring? — the bounding spir- 
its, the health and vigor of the warm life within the 
bud? Were I able, by some magic science, to trace in 
sound to your ears every syllable that fell from their 
lips, would you be aught the wiser? Would you be 
nearer, if you have it not without, to a perception of 
what these two felt and enjoyed? Was the talk so brill- 
iant, do you suppose ? Was it couched in the antithesis 
and epigram that look so clever in print ? In the Para- 
dise to which you look back wdth a fond remembrance, 
was your talk so brilliant? Would it have stood the 
ordeal that demands such sparkling dialogue in the 
novels of the day ? and, if not, why should you demand 
it of la Yalliere and the Countess Eve? 

But there was, it must be owned, something in the 
nature of things which, though untranslatable into Eng- 
lish talk, yet should not be altogether forgotten. In the 
sparkling, clear air, untainted by the foulness of smoke, 
or impurity of stagnant mist, — a sparkling freshness pe- 
culiar to France, — in the ravishing connection of blue 
sky and white blossom, and the delicate green tracery 
of spray of bursting leaf, with the yellow, moss-tinged, 
carved-work of the chateau, with grinning satyr heads 
and friezes of wild, dancing figures turned to stone, was 
something so germain to the light, sparkling nature of 
the old French world — so truly, at the same time, the 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


05 


author and the offspring of it — that it is not given, with- 
out an effort, to the northern, slumberous imagination to 
see tliese things as they really were, to understand either 
the scene or the people of these places, or of these reck- 
less, brilliant hours. 

To la Yalliere, indeed, it seemed as though he were 
translated into an ethereal region, left alone to be driven 
hither and thither by his own unbridled will and desire. 
De Brie seemed to have deserted him, vanished unac- 
countably from the scene at the very moment when his 
distinct personality and powerful influence over his 
friend might have been thought most needed. All help 
seemed to be denied to him. The ways and effects of 
evil — of committed sin — are too varied to be foreseen or 
guarded against. 

******* 

The fifth day after de Brie had so mysteriously disap- 
peared was a Sunday, and la Yalliere did not take his 
accustomed ride that morning. He had some reason to 
expect that the Countess would attend High Mass at 
the cathedral of the city — at any rate he strolled into 
that service in the middle of the morning. 

The cathedral was full of worshippers when la Yal- 
liere entered it. He had come in from idleness and 
curiosity more than from any other motive, and wan- 
dered round the outskirts of the congregation by the 
great western door. He entertained himself by observ- 
ing the demeanor and differing classes of the v^rorship- 
pers. They were of both sexes and of all ages, and of 


96 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


that class which, in Catholic countries, hovers on the 
borders of the Church, not exactly wishing to break 
with it, but in no way submitting to its rule. It con- 
sisted for the most part of men, some of whom were 
young men, and a few women of the lowest class ; their 
more decent sisters were higher up in the vast nave. 

A vista of pillars of immense size and towering 
height, carved and ornamented at the top to the depth 
of many feet, struck la Yalliere’s gaze as he entered. 
Beyond — far beyond, high in the misty, distant roof — a 
gigantic crucifix, crowned with a vague, mysterious awe, 
a screen of wonderfully elaborate stone-work, relieved 
by tier above tier of the dark mahogany of pulpit stair 
and gallery and pinnacle, and of the carved fretwork of 
the stalls. Beyond, still beyond, rapt away from human 
touch or intrusion, as it seemed, at least to these distant 
loiterers, remote from human sense, a region of tran- 
scendental mystery and glory, from which, partly hid- 
den by cloud-wreaths of incense and by the guardian 
screens, and even by the crucifix, was dimly present to 
the sense and feeling the unspeakable awe of white al- 
tar and pix and sacrament. 

La Yalliere found himself standing by a young man 
of more intelligent and refined aspect than most of 
those about him, evidently a workman in some delicate 
art. He was looking round upon the people, most of 
whom were kneeling, with an expression of contempt. 

“ What brings all these people here he said aloud, 
but possibly only to himself. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


97 


‘‘What brings them here?” said laYalliere. ‘‘What 
bri?igs you here?” 

“The music, partly,” said the young man, not so much 
to la Yalliere as in answer to some thought of his own ; 
“ then hunger, and because I have nothing else to do.” 

La Yalliere gazed at him curiously, but before he 
could answer there was a sudden hush in the wave of 
sound, and an intenser sense of awe and worship swept 
over the kneeling crowd and reached even to the out- 
casts and mockers and indifferent that had wandered 
within the limits of the sacred fold, round the precincts 
of the western door. Far away, surrounded and guard- 
ed by hierarchies and priests and reverent worshippers, 
the Ineffable Presence was revealed ; but amid the 
hushed stillness there fell upon the ear the passing of 
gentle footsteps, as two priests, followed by serving 
brothers carrying baskets of loaves, distributed, to who- 
soever would receive them, pieces of consecrated bread, 
remembering, surely. One who, amid a desert wild of 
Galilee, had compassion on the multitude, “because they 
had come from far, and had nothing to eat.” 

“ Will you take it ?” said the young man to la Yalliere, 
with a still more bitter sneer. “ It is not for food. It 
is an obsolete, superstitious charm — doubtless of great 
virtue, but to enjoy it you must kneel to a priest !” 

La Yalliere looked at him again. There was a bit- 
ter, desperate look in the young man’s eyes that he did 
not like. La Yalliere was not the man to involve him- 
self in any trouble or inconvenience that might be 
7 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


avoided by a prudent indifference. He turned and left 
the cathedral. He did not take the sacred bread. 
******* 

As he came out into the then hushed and quiet mar- 
ket-place, soon, as the day drew on, to be the scene of 
gayety and noise, the devil entered into la Yalliere, as 
surely as he entered into Judas Iscariot, though he him- 
self was perhaps unconscious of it, and no outward sign 
revealed the fact. 

In the city market-place and through the empty 
streets, as often in the path-ways of the sunny wood, 
stealthy footsteps seemed to echo and to keep pace with 
his own ; the bland, suggestive voice which by this time 
he knew so well, whispered, “ You have attained to 
jO much, surely you are not satisfied. Only be bold ! 
j!^othing is possible to those who fear — impossible to 
the courageous and the bold !” 

And, indeed, la Yalliere was stifled and constrained 
within the solemn, stately walks and shaded alleys of 
this decorous, princely garden — a type, as it might 
well be thought, of what reserved and virtuous life 
might seem to him to be. The very beauty of such a 
life oppressed him. It was to him as though the very 
dust and stain of daily, reckless life, with all the sorrow 
and the soil which such a life may bring. — will surely 
bring — was to be chosen before such a decorous, decent 
life as this, surrounded and protected as it was by this 
stateliness, this beauty and refinement; the loveliness 
of the Countess even seemed to lose something of its 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


5#9 


charm. She was still above him and out of his sphere. 
A wild, degraded, seltish desire took possession of him, 
a passionate longing to see her elsewhere, in common, 
vulgar life, amid sordid and tawdry surroundings, and 
people far beneath her, of whose existence she had 
hitherto perhaps scarcely dreamed ; to bring her down 
to his level, nay, beneath it ; to possess her with the 
friendly familiarity which such a life allows. 

The adventures and scenes in which, night after 
night, he took his part upon the stage, suggested to 
him incidents and embarrassing situations without num- 
ber. He fancied this lovely, stately creature involved 
in such situations and scenes. His imagination revelled 
in them with an ever-increasing zest. In every such 
scene his own lower nature played a principal part, 
found a sensual and an unclean gratification. Satan 
stood at his right hand. 

******* 

The next morning he was standing, as usual, by the 
Countess’s side, in Paradise, in the centre of the long 
alley, fronting the white flowering blossoms and the 
green ranges of the wood, 

“Your life is crippled and confined,” he said sud- 
denly, “ with all this pomp and solemn decorum. You 
do not know what life is; how bright and cheerful, 
and full of zest and interest and humor and fun. You 
have no perception of the contrast that gives pleasure 
to the free, gay, reckless life of shine and shade, of 
storm and calm, of hunger and feasting, of qnarrellings 


100 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


and makings-np. For myself, this life would suffocate 
me. Could you taste, but for an hour, the other life, 
you would never return to this.” 

Why did the light seem to fade from glade and gar- 
den alley in the Countess’s eyes as she looked up the 
stately walk on either hand ? 

“I shall go into the city this afternoon,” she said in 
a soft tone ; ‘‘ it is very stupid, but it seems to me that 
I see life. I shall go to a fe.te chez Monsieur le Maire. 
There will be dancing on the trellised lawns, and music. 
Then I shall go to the vesper service. Every one is 
there, and there is much talk, but it is always the 
same — the same badinage, the same jokes, that stupid 
little Vicomte with his spiteful stories. It is very 
dull” — and the Countess sighed — “but surely I see 
life.” 

La Yalliere smiled — the sort of superior smile of an 
inferior nature. 

“That is not the life I speak of. Countess,” he said. 
“You noble ladies know nothing of life. Did you ever 
wonder why it was that your nobles — your husbands 
and your brothers — spend so much of their time away 
from you? Did it ever occur to you — do you not see 
— that it is that they may enjoy something of this 
free life, something of this tattered, soiled striving with 
fate — this life which is not shackled by the bonds of 
wealth and custom, but which knows something of the 
joys of poverty and of reckless existence from day to 
day, upon what the day’s successes — or the day’s fail- 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


101 


iires, for that matter — may bring? 1 would it were 
possible for me to show you something of this life !” 

The Countess turned her face towards la Yalliere 
and looked him full in the eyes. There was a flushed 
color in her cheeks and an inquiring, searching look in 
her eyes that would have been trying for some men to 
face, thinking the thoughts that he was thinking, yet he 
stood it without flinching. 

The pseudo-art in which he was a proficient absorbed 
his whole faculties in the project of the moment, the 
success of which became to him, for the time, the sole 
important aim in life. If the part were well played — 
if the character, whatever it were, was well maintained 
throughout — it mattered nothing how it stood with re- 
gard to a moral law, to the well-being of those with 
whom it had to do. The spirit of a born actor possessed 
him. As this lovely creature fixed her eyes upon his 
he felt as though a power that was not his own gave 
him confidence and strength. She was — in spite of the 
soft loveliness of her face and expression, and of the 
rounded outline of her form — of that stately and com- 
manding stature and beauty, of that fulness and perfec- 
tion of figure, of that steadiness and gravity of look, 
that makes woman not the frail suppliant for man’s 
pity and protection, but his equal and competitor in 
the race of life — a fact that adds to the enterprise, 
in the eyes of many men, an unspeakable zest, that 
makes such a woman a priceless possession, an exquisite 
prize. 


102 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


It was a strange and terrible thing, but, as she looked 
at him, he seemed to grow in beauty and in power. A 
fascination of which she had been unconscious hitherto 
seemed to issue from his look and figure, as though 
some glamour from below — it could hardly have come 
from heaven — had been suffused into him by deadly 
magic and guile. A fatal, alluring attraction seemed to 
overmaster her will, to lure and to induce her to waver 
in her lofty calm, to throw down her high-born reserve, 
to follow him even to poverty and to shame. 

And, indeed, there was in la Yalliere’s expression and 
countenance something that might well lure and per- 
suade the will, in the perfectly cut features, the delicate, 
distinct eyebrows, the thin, suasive lines of the mouth, 
closed, but trembling, as it were, in the act to open with 
dulcet sound, in the full and confident yet inoffensive 
gaze of the almond-shaped, finely shaded eyes, a gaze 
full of conscious sympathy, of a wide, all-embracing 
perception and knowledge and friendliness. A beauti- 
ful, persuasive creature, strangely in touch and keeping 
with the soft beauty and peace of the garden which it 
seemed fated to annul and to destroy. 

“Shall I not trust this man?” thought the Countess 
Eve. “ Shall not I, too, see something of this life of 
which he speaks, I feel, so well ? Why should not 
women also know something of good and evil ? Where 
is my husband at the present moment? If he may 
leave his home and wander over the face of the earth 
in search of adventures, surely so may I.” 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


103 


It must have been some demon that put this thouglit 
into her mind just then. 

“ What do you want me to do she said. 

“ I will have two horses in the valley outside the pos- 
tern door at this time to-morrow,” said la Valliere, hard- 
ly knowing indeed what he said, so entirely did the 
words seem prompted to him. “Come masked. Many 
ladies wear masks to protect their faces from the dust. 
We can return the same way.” 

“ I will come,” she said. 

* * * * * * * 

Each morning in that fair spring-time rose, if it might 
be, more lovely than the last. Every gift that could 
make earth or life attractive seemed lavished upon sky 
and land. A mild, soft night had caused the spring to 
burst almost into full summer in a few hours, and had 
bathed all the fresh wood and the grass and dowers 
with a sparkling crystal veil of pearly light and mist. 

The Countess came into the garden at the appointed 
hour and passed down to the postern door, her mask in 
her hand. 

There was no tremor in the blue sky over her head, 
no sudden pallor on the golden dowers of the earth, no 
warnino^-note or stillness in the choir of birds that tilled 
the air with music. The Countess put the key into the 
lock. It grated harshly as she turned it, but it turned 
easily to her hand. It had been turned often of late. 
She opened the door and went out. 

The light lay clear upon the grassy turf and on the 


104 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


stems of the great trees dappled with sunshine and with 
shade ; her heart stopped with a sudden shock and still- 
ness, for, the moment that she passed the threshold, she 
saw It for the first time. 

It was only for a second. All the power of hell, all 
the glamour and delusion and sorcery at the command of 
the Prince of Evil, were exerted at the moment to recall 
the false step, to cancel the sight; but it was too late. 
She had seen, by the power and light of God’s con- 
science in a pure spirit — she had seen, at the moment 
of a fatal error, the face of committed Sin. 

What she saw she never knew. The horror of the 
sight, whatever it was, blasted her memory, and left it 
so far a ghastly blank. She sank upon her knees before 
the still open door of Paradise, her face buried in her 
hands. 


X. 


The same day that la Valliere had left the Countess, 
he acted at night in the little theatre in the city. In 
no crisis of his fate, however severe, would he willingly 
have kept away from the stage or renounced his part. 

Here and there, in other nations, have individuals felt 
this unique attraction for the stage ; but in no nation, 
as to the French, has been given such ability, delicacy, 
and perfection in the representation of every aspect 
which character can assume or which incident can fur- 
nish. Acting and the stage, in France or among French- 
men, is a different thing, altogether a distinct art and 
place, from the craft and the boards which are called b}^ 
these names in other countries. In the possession of 
this gift la Yalliere was a true Frenchman. 

When he came off the stage, instead of finding, as he 
usually did, his friend de Brie waiting for him, he was 
accosted by the little Yiscount. 

“Monsieur la Yalliere,” he said, “you have been per- 
fectly charming to-night; you have surpassed yourself. 
Might I hope that you will condescend to sup with me 
to-night?” 

They went out into the moonlit streets, accompanied 
by a boy carrying a torch. In a silent and somewhat 


106 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


deserted street, in a part of the city which had once 
been fashionable at a time when centralization had not 
crushed out all provincial life in France, they stopped 
at the portiere of a large and apparently luxurious 
house. The great door falling back, they found them- 
selves in a passage, which was chiefly lighted by the large 
fire of a porter’s lodge on one side. From the lodge, 
where apparently he had been warming himself before 
his fire, there appeared a valet or serving-man of the 
true old French type. 

“ Ah ! la Fleur,” said the Yiscouiit, “ I hope you have 
something presentable for supper. I have brought with 
me a most distinguished gentleman, whom probably 
3^ou know vei^ well by sight.” 

La Fleur bowed with a complaisant smile. “ It would 
distress me,” he said, “ were Monsieur le Vicomte badly 
served, whether he returns alone or with company.” 

They followed la Fleur and the boy, who had pro- 
cured candles instead of his torch, up a large and some- 
what imposing staircase. As they ascended, la Yalliere 
soon perceived that they were not the only inhabitants 
of the house. Sounds of talking and even of quarrelling 
were heard, and figures, some of them in decided dis- 
habille, peeped at them round corners and flitted from 
their sight down passages. They were conducted into a 
comfortably but antiquely" furnished dining-room, where 
a round table was set for supper. 

The Viscount showed la Yalliere into an adjoining 
room, and begged to be excused for a few moments. 


TEE COUNTESS EVE. 


107 


When la Valliere came out into the supper-room the 
Viscount was entering with two large and dusty bot- 
tles of wine in his hands. He welcomed la Yalliere 
again with enthusiasm. 

“Monsieur,” he said, “ it gives me the sincerest pleas- 
ure to entertain you. You have given me, I say it from 
my heart, some of the most delightful moments that 
have occurred in a life that has been by no means 
too full of pleasure. I give you in return what 1 
have.” 

La Yalliere was touched by the little man’s evident 
sincerity. He expressed himself as politely as he could. 

“You may be surprised,” continued the V^isconnt, 
“to find me in so large a house. That is easily ex- 
plained. When my family gave up la vie de province 
and lived entirely in Paris, they resigned to me this 
house — their town house — as my portion. You may 
have wondered, sometimes, why I remain here at all, 
and do not go to Paris. That is a long story which 
need not be told here. I began life as a page to the 
Queen. When I left the pages I entered the marine, 
which I did not like. Voild tout. I entered into a 
compact with la Fleur. He lets the house. 1 reserve 
for myself two or three rooms. Y^ou may have noticed, 
even since you have been here to-night, that there are 
other inmates.” 

La Yalliefe admitted that he had. 

“ Y^es,” continued the Viscount, “ there are complica- 
tions, at times disturbances; but it is life, it is enter- 


108 


tllE COUNTESS EVE. 


taining — at times very much so. Besides, it is remu- 
nerative. Ah ! here is supper.’^ 

La Fleur entered, accompanied by the boy, and sup- 
per was served. It consisted of small carp from the 
river, in a great dish, a poulet delicately cooked with 
truffles, and other dainties, all exquisitely served. 

“This carpillonP said theYiscount, “at this time of 
year, caught in certain reaches of the river, is consid- 
ered very fine.’’ 

“It is delicious,” said la Yalliere. 

As he spoke la Fleur filled the glasses from one of 
the bottles theYiscount had himself brought up. 

La Yalliere had taken part of his glass, when he put it 
down suddenly, and looked at the Yiscount inquiringly. 

“ Ah !” said the other, evidently pleased, “ you like 
that wine. That is good. I like a man who knows 
what he is drinking. There is a somewhat curious 
story about that wine. When my family gave up this 
house as a cit}^ house, they took away most of the fur- 
niture to Paris ; but there was some wine left, and la 
Fleur and I used to visit the cellars.” 

“If the wine they left,” said la Yalliere, emptying 
his glass, which la Fleur had refilled in the mean time, 
“ was of this quality, it speaks more for their complai- 
sance than for their taste.” 

The Yiscount smiled. “ Listen,” he said. “ By-and- 
by — we used to visit the cellar, la Fleur and I — ” 

La Fleur, who must have heard the story often, was 
standing by with a reserved, amused air. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


109 


“ La Fleur and 1. Suddenly, one day, we perceived 
a door which neither of ns had before observed. We 
tried to open it. It resisted our efforts, although the 
lock was broken off. We forced off a portion of the 
rotted wood. Then we perceived that the whole vault, 
or small cellar, was filled with a huge fungus, which 
prevented the door from opening inward. We cut it 
out piecemeal with an axe. Then at the back we dis- 
covered a small rMuit of this wine. Voild ! It must 
have been there a century — who knows 

La Fleur filled the glasses again. 

“I only produce this wine,” said the Viscount, ‘‘for 
my most especial friends. I have already said that I 
am under most peculiar obligation to you. La Fleur 
respects my secret.” 

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said la Fleur, breaking si- 
lence at last in a soft voice, “has attached himself to 
me by so many acts of condescension and kindness that 
it would be infamous were I to betray his slightest con- 
fidence.” 

“Wine,” said the Viscount, “is a wonderful thing. 
I have read in an old book that belonged to a great- 
uncle of mine, who was a great curioso — a book written 
by an English doctor to that king of theirs whose head 
they cut off ; funny thing, was it not, to cut oft' a king’s 
head? but the English are naturally eccentric — this doc- 
tor, partly out of his own head, and out of van Helmont 
and Paracelsus, tells strange things, of strifes and his- 
tories, that go on within the nature of wine, until the 


110 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


perfect spirit is born, and is purified, and escapes, and 
triumphs over gorgons and demons and slaves, and be- 
comes immortal and the giver of immortality. All 
this had something to do with the existence of that 
mystic fungus that filled that cellar of ours — which tills 
other cellars, as I have heard. It certainly is wonderful 
wine.” 

And with a voice somewhat cracked, but in which 
much of the old sweetness yet lingered, he sang Sgana- 
relle’s air — 

“Qu’ils sent doux, 

Bouteille jolie, 

Qu’ils sont doux, 

Vos petits glougloux! 

Mais mou sort ferait bien des jaloux, 

Si vous etiez toujours remplie. 

Ah! bouteille, ma vie, 

Pourquoi vous videz-vous?” 

When they had despatched the jpoulet aux 
and la Fleur had served an omelette and other delica- 
cies, he left the room, and the two men were left alone. 
La Yalliere was seized with a sudden idea, inspired 
probably by the wine. 

‘‘Monsieur le Yicomte,” he said, “I wish you would 
add another to the favors you have already granted me 
by asking me to dejeuner to-morrow and allowing me 
to bring a friend 

The Yiscount looked at him with surprise. 

“ And this friend 

“ Is the Countess Eve.” 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


Ill 


“Mon Dieu!” cried the Viscount, “jou have not lost 
time! And, pray, what should the Countess Eve do 
here?” 

“ I have promised the Countess,” said la Valliere, 
“ that she should see life. It strikes me that in your 
menage^ from what you have told me and from what I 
have myself partly seen, something of this sort might 
be shown her.” 

A very curious expression came into the Viscount’s 
face. He looked at la Valliere for a few seconds across 
his wine in silence. Had la Valliere’s plans been more 
clearly defined — had he formed, in fact, any distinct 
scheme or plan of action at all — he might have read in 
the delicate, worn face much that might have been of 
use to him, much that might have revealed aspects of 
human life, of which even he, 'with all the knowledge 
of good and evil which his art or craft gave him, was 
still ignorant. As it was, however, he noticed merely 
that there was a somewhat awkward pause. Then the 
Viscount said — 

“ I should think of it. Monsieur, were I you, once or 
twice. He is of la haute noblesse on the mother’s side ; 
en outre^ elle est si belief 

La Valliere looked at his companion with surprise. 
Was this the spiteful, gossiping, frivolous chatterer, at 
once the amusement and the pest of society? At his 
own table, all through the evening, he had been a dif- 
ferent man from what la Valliere had known him else- 
where. It seemed as though his other manner had 


112 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


dropped from him as soon as he had left that vie de 
societe^ for which possibly it had been alone assumed. 

“ But I thought, Monsieur le Yicomte,” said la Valli- 
ere, ‘‘that you had been so anxious that Madame should 
He desennuyer V'* 

The Viscount looked at him again for a moment. 

“ Que voulez-vous, mon cher Monsieur he said. 
“Do you take a passing word so much au serieux. 
Unejoetite hourgeoise jperit-etre^ mais la haute noblesse! 
dest tout autre choseP 

There was an awkward pause ; la Fleur fortunately 
came in with coffee, and the Viscount changed the sub- 
ject. 

“Your friend, de Brie, did not come to the assembly 
of nobles,” he said. “ I wish you could have been there; 
you would have gleaned invaluable hints for your art. 
Picture to yourself such a collection of antiques. We 
attended mass, and then dined together with Monsieur 
I’lntendant. It was the only good meal many of them 
would have in the year. I would warrant that out of 
all the nobility of the province, and there are thousands, 
there are not a dozen who have even a decent income. 
You would have laughed at the comical assemblage.” 

La Valliere was too disconcerted to reply. The Vis- 
count went on — 

“I sat next an old Don, Monsieur le Comte de la 
Roche-Anguie d’Avras. It must have been the only 
good dinner he had had for many a day. I was rather 
curious to see on what sort of a Rosinante he would 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


113 


depart — the old mares and other curiosities of horse- 
flesh would have delighted a Calot — so I put myself in 
his way as we were breaking up, and, would you believe 
it, he marched away on foot ! — three leagues if it were 
a yard ! — to his ruined chateau-metairie^ where they live 
from year’s end to year’s end on pigeons, fowls, and 
flsh. I know the place — great ruined towers over alleys 
of chestnut-trees. He wore a long antique cloak, per- 
fectly brushed, but darned all round the edges — no 
doubt by the fair hands of Mesdarnes de la Koche-An- 
guie d’Avras. I ventured on a little joke as he came 
down, about your friend the Countess — Adam and Eve, 
you know, and — you know the sort of thing. My old 
Don drew himself up like a poker, looked as though he 
would have eaten me. Then he pulled his long gray 
mustache down into his mouth as though he would have 
eaten it. Then he said — 

‘‘ ‘ When I was a boy, Monsieur le Yicomte’ — picture 
to yourself him, or me either for that matter, a boy ! 
‘ When I was a boy it was held dangerous to joke about 
a pretty woman in the presence of gentlemen.’ Then 
he strode away into the muddy lanes and into the 
night.” 

The Viscount continued his chatter, evidently with 
the courteous intention of covering laValliere’s embar- 
rassment at the reception his proposal had met wuth, 
but la Valliere was too disconcerted to respond. 

Suddenly a terrific disturbance made itself heard 
through the partly open door. 

8 


114 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


“ What is that noise, la Fleur said his master, if 
such he might be called. 

“ Only the Fleche family. Monsieur,” replied la Fleur. 
‘‘ The old man has caught that vaurien., the gold-worker, 
who has been forbidden the house, with his daughter, 
and he and his sons have been dropping him out of one 
of the front windows. They are really too noisy. I 
sliall have to dismiss them. They pay well, however.” 

The Viscount looked at la Valliere for a moment 
with a meaning smile upon his thin, lined face, but la 
Valliere did not speak. 

The men finished their wine. Then the Viscount 
conducted his friend to the great door leading to the 
street. As they went down the staircase the commo- 
tion seemed to have subsided. They neither heard nor 
saw any one. 

As la Fleur opened the door for la Valliere to pass 
out, the Viscount followed him a step into the street — 

“Monsieur,” he whispered, taking him by the arm, 
“don’t do it. Think about it, anticipate it, but don’t 
do it. 3fa foi ! nothing irritates Satan more than 
that!” 

Then he tripped back again into the house, and the 
great door was closed upon la Valliere and upon the 
gloomy street. 


XL 


When la Yalliere awoke from a restless, iinrefreshing 
sleep, and remembered the events of the past night and 
his strange appointment with the Countess Eve, his sen- 
sations were of a very conflicting character. 

Sprung as he was from a race of born actors, advan- 
cing from generation to generation in the social scale 
and in intellectual acuteness, but not at all in any moral 
or mental strength, he was himself at last as little un- 
der the domain or ordinance of moral responsibility as 
it is possible for any human creature to be. 

The romantic incidents of the last few days, the beauty 
of the Countess and of her home, the wild, mysterious 
surroundings of adventure and of intrigue, had impress- 
ed his fancy and excited his imagination as an attractive 
and fantastic play would have done. When he had stood 
in Paradise the morning before, so far as he was acting 
for himself at all, and was not the mere instrument of 
the powers of evil which had gathered round him and 
found him a compliant and finished tool, his chief idea 
had been to gratify his desire of having so glorious a 
creature as the Countess in his own power and posses- 
sion, to do with her as he would. 

He could, however, never properly be said to have any 


116 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


will of his own, for, according to his training and his 
creed of life, it was only the passing fancy of the mo- 
ment, the accident of environment, that attracted his 
attention or interest, that was worthy of regard. He 
had therefore been greatly impressed by the way in 
which his proposal had been received by the Yisconnt, 
and had it been necessary to take action immediately on 
leaving his host, he would probably have relinquished 
his intention, though such conduct would have involved 
the breaking of an assignation. But when he awoke in 
the morning his first thought was that the Countess 
would come to meet him in the wood, that he would lift 
her upon her horse ; whither he would take her he knew 
not. A strange, unusual power within him — a strength 
of purpose and of will — surprised even himself. The 
delight and zest of such an enterprise were pictured to 
his imagination with a distinctness such as he had never 
known before. 

In one respect fortune favored him. There was ar- 
ranged to be given that afternoon, at a chateau some 
leagues from the city, a performance of private theat- 
ricals — Parade as it was called — at which all the fashion 
of the neighborhood would be present. These Parades^ 
which were slight comedies representing the humors of 
the lower classes, were extremely popular among the 
aristocracy of the time, and were a sign of the general 
depravity of taste. The Count, trained in an earlier and 
severer scliool of society, detested them. 

“ It was astonishing to him,” he would say, “ how la- 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


117 


dies of standing in societ}^ often of rank and fashion, 
should condescend to utter sentiments couched in the* 
language of the hsh-market.” 

The Count and Countess, therefore, had declined the 
invitation to be present, but all the rest of the world 
had accepted, and the neighborhood of the chateau of 
the Countess Eve would in consequence be deserted 
during the whole of the day. 

It seemed indeed as if the powers of evil were al- 
lowed a clear field for their malefic work. De Brie, 
who alone exerted any continuously steadying infiuence 
upon his friend, was mysteriously absent — la Yalliere 
did not know where. Left to his own devices, as it 
seemed, he became an easy prey to those impulses which 
he had made the rulers of his life. He had ordered 
horses to be ready for him in the city — one accoutred 
for a lady; and accompanied by a boy, he mounted and 
rode out at the appointed time. 

But as he rode out, his mind was not at ease. It was 
one thing to stand in the radiant garden, in the warm, 
inspiring sunshine, face to face with perhaps the love- 
liest eyes he had ever seen, inspired too by some strange 
power which did not seem his own, and quite another, 
in the cool, unexciting morning hour, to ride out slow- 
ly to an enterprise the end of which he could not see. 
The manner in which the Yiscount had received his pro- 
posal showed him, with distinct clearness, the audacity 
of his enterprise. Its possible consequences occurred to 
him with alarming insistence; and as he rode along 


118 


THE COUJSTE^E EVE. 


another difficulty hitherto not thought of perplexed 
him. 

He had intended to leave his horses at the little farm 
in the valley, where, as we have seen, he had been in 
the habit of leaving his horse on his visits to the Count- 
ess. He had thought that he would then, as usual, have 
gone on foot to the postern door, and that he would be 
there at the appointed moment to receive the Countess 
as she came out. If he had carried out this plan it is 
possible that the enduring fate of the personages of this 
story would have been, for every one of them, other 
than it was. 

But a weak, highly sensitive, and imaginative nature 
suggested to him endless complications. It suddenly 
occurred to him, as he rode along, that the people at 
the farm had more than once shown considerable sus- 
picion of his purposes, and that, should he bring the 
Countess down to them, even though she might be 
masked, something unpleasant might be expected to 
happen. He was not a coward, but he was a man of 
highly wrought nervous temperament and susceptibili- 
ty, and he shrank instinctively from anything like a 
scene or contention. 

The relations between the noblesse and the peasantry 
were in those days doubtless not of the most friendly 
character, but the immediate retainers of the nobility 
were generally attached to them by interest if not by 
affection ; and the Count, who had been long abroad, 
and had resided for some years in England, had lost, if 


The countess eve. 


119 


he ever bad them, those cruel, insolent feelings witli re- 
gard to the peasantry of which some of the French no- 
bles were accused. He was respected, and to a certain 
extent beloved, by his servants and retainers. Anything 
prejudicial to his interests and honor was certain to be 
resented by them. 

These reflections caused la Yalliere to hesitate. The 
more he thought of his scheme, the more wild and dan- 
gerous did it appear. The peculiar susceptibility of im- 
pression which made him a pliant tool in the hands of 
evil, at the same time militated against the absolute do- 
minion of any particular form of evil. In the sunny 
garden the morning before, when only the misty out- 
line of his scheme lay before him, it had seemed easy 
and delicious ; now he was more than half inclined to 
turn back and renounce the whole. 

But a complex feeling, made up of vanity and honor, 
prevented this action. Having pledged his word to be 
at the garden gate at a certain hour, surely he would 
keep his tryst ; and as he rode along, a mocking, sneer- 
ing voice seemed ever constant at his ear, insinuating 
to his fancy the intolerable ignominy that would await 
a man who, having such a prize within his grasp, fal- 
tered from irresolution or from fear, and turned back 
at the moment of success. 

Perplexed by these contradictory emotions, he adopted 
a timid policy which, as is usually the case, was fatal to 
the success of his purpose. He avoided the cottage in 
the wood, and leaving his horses with the boy in the 


120 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


main road, he determined to await the coming of the 
Countess at a turn of the wooded path which command- 
ed at once the farm-house and the horses which he had 
left. His oscillation and alteration of plan had occa- 
sioned some delay, and he did not reach the turn of the 
path until some moments after that the Countess, true 
to her time to a second, had opened the postern door; 
no finite understanding can realize to the full what the 
delay of these few moments meant. 

From the point where la Valliere stood he could not 
see the door. He waited fora few minutes impatiently, 
half hoping that she would not come. Then, his anx- 
iety overcoming his prudence, he gave up the sight of 
the cottage and of his horses, and advanced towards the 
garden through the shaded path-ways of the wood. 

It was now near upon mid-day. The full morning 
light, the brilliant sunshine, the soft verdure of the 
I green turf and of the fresh leaves, and the dazzling 
white blossom of the wild cherry-trees were all unheed- 
ed by him, for before him, as he ascended the path, the 
postern door stood wide open ! the bright light from 
the outside shining through into the bosky apple groves 
of Paradise within. There was no trace or sign of the 
Countess anywhere. What terrible thing had hap- 
pened ? What was the meaning of the open door? 

An appalling sense of mystery, a wild horror and ter- 
ror such as he had never felt before, seized upon la 
Valliere’s mind. It seemed to him that he was con- 
scious above and around him — in the sunny still air, in 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


121 


the warmth and glow of life, and of fresh spring birth 
— of the presence of malefic existence, baffled and ex- 
cited to despair. The very air he breathed seemed 
charged with this environing, oppressive power and 
force, terrible from its invisibility. The peculiar facul- 
ty with which he was gifted rose in fierce opposition 
to this unseen, intangible oppression and tyranny. 
Anything, however appalling to sight and sense, must 
be better than this ! By a tremendous effort he concen- 
trated his will, as he had done before, in a determined 
effort to see, and before him, issuing, as it were, from 
the open door of Paradise, the Abbe once more stood 
in his path. 

He wished, or so la Valliere’s scared fancy showed 
him, to avoid his recognition, and he seemed to hold 
the sleeve of his cassock across his face ; but la Yalliere, 
maddened with passion and terror, threw himself across 
his steps. 

“ Devil ! fiend !” he cried ; ‘‘ where is she ? What 
have you done with her f ’ 

The figure drew the concealing drapery from across 
its face, and la Yalliere staggered backward, blasted at 
the sight, so deadly in hate, so vindictive in disappoint- 
ment and despair, was the expression on the ghastly 
face he saw. 

If there be an annihilation terrible to the damned, to 
the lost and utterly malefic being — an extinction of the 
evil existence which is its life and hope, its sole purpose 
and aim, and which comes to such a being therefore 


122 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


with an intolerable, burning despair — a crouching, craven 
fear, which spends its last moments in a mad, purpose- 
less, reckless scattering of the venom which was its life 
— then such a paroxysm of despairing death, such a final 
effort of defeated devilry, lashed as with stripes of burn- 
ing steel across la Yalliere’s gaze. 

“Fool!” — the words hissed upon his face like with- 
ering flame — “ miserable fool ! Go on !” 

Unconscious of will or of motion, la Yalliere passed 
through the open door into the blessed sunshine of the 
garden beyond. Some half - way across the daisied 
sward, and beneath the apple-trees, now laden with a 
wealth of opening blossom, the Countess Eve, clinging 
to her husband’s arm, was standing in the dazzling 
light. Beside them, her eyes fixed upon the open door, 
stood the Abbess ; and de Brie, with out-stretched hand, 
stepped forward to meet his friend. Above them, on 
the distant terrace, beyond the leafy arcades of the gar- 
den, the tapering spire of the Tree of Life pointed tow- 
ards the cloudless sky. 

Dazed and confounded as he was by what had passed, 
scared and distracted by the terrible vision he had just 
escaped from, la Yalliere’s eyes were riveted upon an- 
other sight — a sight which he was never to forget. He 
lived to see the massacres of September, and the butch- 
ery of the Swiss Guard, yet the sight that haunted him 
to his death-bed was not these, nor yet that terrible face 
outside the gate of Paradise, but the Countess’s face as 
she stood clinging to her husband’s arm. 


THE COUNTESS EVE. 


12 a- 

Often in the dead of night, after long years had 
passed away, he would wake up with that lovely face 
shining out upon him from the darkness, distinct and 
clear as on that wonderful morn, a radiance of the won- 
dering jo}^ of escape and deliverance upon her lips and 
within her eyes ; but through the meshes of her chest- 
nut hair, and across the gleam of her violet eyes, an ap- 
palling mystic light — the singe and glow of the flame 
of the pit ! 

The Abbess stood like the archangel of God, the cru- 
cifix, that turned its flashing light every way, in her up- 
lifted hand. 

“ Fear not,” she said, as la Yalliere reached his friend ; 
‘‘he will return no more. The sin which gave him 
birth, which kept him in existence, and gave him his 
malefic power, is abolished and blotted out ; for by this 
sign — the sign of the Crucifix — than which none other 
shall be given while the world endures. Death and Hell 
are cast into the lake that burns forever.” 


THE END. 




THEIR PILGRIMAGE. 


By Charles Dudley Warner. Richly Illustrated by C. S. 
Reinhart, pp. viii., 364. 8vo, Half Leather, $2 00. 


Aside from the delicious story — its wonderful portraitures of character 
and its dramatic development — the book is precious to all who know any- 
thing about the great American watering-places, for it contains incompar- 
able descriptions of those famous resorts and their frequenters. Even 
without the aid of Mr. Reinhart’s brilliant drawings, Mr. Warner conjures 
up word-pictures of Cape May, Newport, Saratoga, Lake George, Richfield 
Springs, Niagara, the White Mountains, and all the rest, which strike the 
eye like photographs, so clear is every outline. But Mr. Reinhart’s de- 
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single one of them. “Their Pilgrimage” is destined, for an indefinite 
succession of summers, to be a ruling favorite with all visitors of the 
mountains, the beaches, and the spas which are so marvellously reflected 
in its pages. — W. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

The author touches the canvas here and there with lines of color that 
fix and identify American character. Herein is the real charm for those 
who like it best, and for this one may anticipate that it will be one of the 
prominent books of the time. Of the fancy and humor of Mr. Warner, 
which in witchery of their play and power are quite independent of this 
or that subject, there is nothing to add. But acknowledgment is due Mr. 
Reinhart for nearly eighty finely conceived drawings, and to the publishers 
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No more entertaining travelling companions for a tour of pleasure re- 
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glad to look on the brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world 
with which he mingles. ... In Mr. Reinhart the author has an assistant 
who has done with his pencil almost exactly what Mr. Warner has accom- 
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success the tone and costume of each place visited, and abound in good- 
natured fun. — Christian Union, N. Y, 

Mr. Reinhart’s spirited and realistic illustrations are very attractive, and 
contribute to make an unusually handsome book. We have already com- 
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travel and fiction which we looked forward to with confidence did, in fact, 
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pared, and of the highest interest. Much attention is x)aid to art decoration, and exqui- 
site designs and admirable papers are xmblished from the New York Decorative Art So- 
ciety, the South Kensington Eoyal School of Art Needle- work, Mrs. Candace Wheeler, and 
other distinguished artists in this branch of industry. 

The literary merit of Harper’s Bazar is of the highest order. Its serial stories are 
by writers of world-wido fame, such as Thomas Hardy, William Black, Mrs. Lynn 
Linton, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, F. W. Robinson, W. E. Norris, Bret Harte, 
W. Clark Russell, W. Besant, James Payn, Mrs. Alexander, John Strange Winter, 
D. C. Murray, etc., etc. Its short stories are distinguished for their brightness. Its edi- 
torials are vigorous and sensible, and its poems, essays, and other matter are of the best. 

The fine art illustrations of Harper’s Bazar, from the best native and foreign artists, 
form a marked feature of the journal, as do the humorous cuts and anecdotes that have 
won it the name of the American Punch. 

A host of attractive novelties are in preparation for Harper’s Bazar for 1889. The 
new volume will open with a charming novelette by the popular author, Mrs. Frances 
Hodgson Burnett, entitled “The Pretty Sister of Jos6,” with graphic illustrations by 
the well-known artist Mr. C. S. Reinhart ; together with a thrilling serial story, full of 
strong dramatic interest, entitled “ A Crooked Path,” by the fiivorite novelist, Mrs. Alex- 
ander. Tliese will be followed during the year by powerful serial stories by the dis- 
tinguished authors, William Black and Thomas Hardy. The same volume will con- 
tain a brilliant series of illustrated papers on “ Decorative Art in the Household,” by 
Mrs. Candace Wheeler, and useful articles on nursery management, entitled “Cradle 
and Nursery,” by Mrs. Christine Terhune Herrick, with many other attractions yet to 
bo announced. No i)aius will be spared to preserve the high standard of Harper’s 
Bazar, and to maintain it in its recognized place as at once the most readable and tlie 
most useful home journal in existence, one that no family can afford to be without. 

l{3ir^^r'sM3i%B.z\nQ,postage free, per year, 00 , postage fjre, per year. . $400 

Harper’s Weekly, “ ' “ 4 00 Harper’s Young People, “ ..200 

Address: HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, New York. 


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